Is there a historical precedent or tv series that mirrors whats going on in the States right now? Besides Handmaids Tale?
I'd like something more extended and literally episodic the way the word looks?
Ever heard of the rise of Nazism in Germany?
Babylon 5.
Rewatched this again a year ago and it has never been more relevent
Star wars episode 3.
Veep is probably more generally accurate.
BrainDead, can recommend.
It’s a novel, but “It Can’t Happen Here” follows a scenario where a populist becomes President and removes all opposition.
Black mirror. Maybe a ww2 documentary
Elysium; the Matt Damon movie where the rich live on a space station and leave the rest of us to rot.
I'm not saying it's what's going on right this moment, but it's the end-goal of everything that Musk, Bezos, etc... are doing.
But who will do all the work?
Automation controlled by AI
The historical precedent is the rise of Nazi Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. You should now be somewhere in the early 1930s.
Nazi Germany was the template, so there can be no answer more right than this that isn't based on Nazi Germany.
To get spoilers, watch Downfall.
Not a good example, since that shows the happy ending where powerful countries are finally finishing off the fascist regime after years of war and millions of lives lost. That is the amount of effort and determination it took to rid Germany of its fascists.
No such prospects for the American fascist regime. On the contrary the most powerful countries in the world will happily support it, because it undermines Western dominance.
And Canada and Greenland are Poland.
or Poland and Austria
Idiocracy
Idiocracy
They found the smartest person in the world and listened to them to fix their problems... Not at all accurate.
That is the typical internet response whenever that movie is brought up in this context. But that response fails to take into consideration that they only did that after not having done that for hundreds of years until the point where the movie begins.
Once zoomers can vote and Mr Beast gets elected, things will change.
we're in the "what if they didn't" timeline....
We're in the time he was frozen. We have 40 years or so before that part happens.
We’re only 20 years after Joe got frozen and he hasn’t been thawed yet. We still have 480 years before things get that bad.
They also tried to publicly execute him.
You make a convincing argument.
VEEP
Seriously. “Today the secretary of defense with a drinking problem reveals military secrets to a reporter due to a texting error.”
Along the same lines, from the same writer/creator, Armando Iannucci, there's The Death of Stalin. The absurdity of how the inner circle navigated the politics around Stalin, including after his death, is hilarious but also a good look at how these power dynamics work in an authoritarian, despotic government.
Or also from Iannucci, Avenue 5, which basically is set in the future where all of this political nonsense continues, and is in the background of a comedy about a space cruise ship.
I've tried watching veep twice and couldn't
Game of Thrones.
Andor
Just started watching that show recently and it's so amazing I'm surprised Disney allowed it to be made. The parallels to the current state of society are so apparent. In one of the episodes of Season 2 a character says "Why can't they just leave us alone" and that resonated with me so much
Whys that?
fascist top-down government that rules without checks and balances stripping away civil rights through exploitation of the vulnerable using fear-of-the-other propaganda and outright lies to further centralize its abusive, selfish control over society while a small dedicated decentralized band of civil rights activists fight the expanding power and influence of the dark side.
The Man in the High Castle.
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Great book and a TV miniseries. An alternative history that has Lindbergh winning the presidency in the 30s and the US government enacting fascism domestically. The book does a great job of portraying the chaos that ensues. The series is also very good.
Leaving off with an ellipsis makes it look like I should click your comment to continue reading.
As intended!
I find the last days of the Qing dynasty China to be somewhat analogous. Institutional rot, rampant corruption, a complete failure to adapt to crises and open hostility to anyone proposing workable solutions or trying to learn from foreign examples. Basically the two voices in government were, "Learn how guns work while completely refusing to understand the scientific principles that allowed them to be developed" and "Learn absolutely nothing." The "lesser evil" was woefully inadequate, and once the government finally collapsed, both factions that emerged (communists and nationalist) were far more influenced by Western ideas than even the most radical in the Qing government were.
There’s a satirical (well, don’t know how long it will be considered that) movie about it… it’s called Idiocracy
It's a great movie, but the eugenics theme is bullshit. The causes of modern decline have nothing to do with the half-baked idea that idiots will overrun the world through breeding.
Idiots aren't born in increasing waves, they're made by chronically underfunding education and flooding the world with propaganda and manipulative social media algorithms.
I don't think the reason for the setting of the movie was to be taken very serious. It could have been much more realistic in its scenario, but then people would have criticised it for being too "on the nose" or similar, like they did with Don't look up.
Yeah, I watched it again not too long ago and it really hurts the movie in my opinion. It's still fairly funny, but I can't really recommend it.
I would much rather have Camacho as president than Cheeto Benito.
Terry Crews 2028!
That applies as far as the dumbing down of the population, but even they didn't go for fascists as leaders. That's right, the population of Idiocracy was smarter than what we have now.
1984 by George Orwell
Not TV (at least not that I am aware of), but it was the first thing to come to my mind. They made a movie if you prefer but, as always, you'll get more from the book.
It's not that long of a book either, and it's an important part of our culture; for the wrong reasons I'd argue, as surveillance is what "1984" has come to stand for but is a more minor part of the book compared to controlling thought.
The wave of fascism going throughput Europe in the 19th and 20th century of course.
But the state of the American people is also portrayed well in The Hunger Games (books and movies).
The Prequel to Schindler's List
Babylon Berlin
You can treat Costa Gavras movies like a series: Z, State of Siege, Missing
A lot of what he talks about prior to previous insurrections are pretty similar to what's happening now.
They also have a podcast called It Could Happen Here. Originally it talked about what to expect if a civil war breaks out basically, but it's now a news show about stuff going on and also with some leftist political discussion thrown in.
(Robert Evans created these, Behind the Bastards, and wrote the book It Could Happen Here.)
Oh hey, it's the same host as Behind the Bastards. Thanks for the recommendation!
But, do you know who, allegedly, would never instigate an insurrection?
The wonderful people at BLEEEP. So long as you leave them and their child-hunting island alone they'll never instigate an insurrection against anyone.
The bobiverse series (about a guy who is hit by a car right after signing up for a cryogenics thing and then wakes in the future to find out he's basically been legislated to have no rights and is stuck into a self-replicating drone for space exploration, it's pretty good) kind of starts off setting the backstory like it. The christofascism just started a bit later.
Obviously it's not one to one but given Trump's performative Christianity it was all I could think about around the failed coup on Jan 6.
on the non-political side, i recommend Mickey 17. the synopsys of bobiverse sounds like it has similar theming except this story focuses more on the character and less on the world (though the world is still there).
The Twilight Zone (2019), "The Wunderkind"
Synopsis: A down-on-his-luck campaign manager (John Cho) is determined to get a kid (Jacob Tremblay) elected as the next President of the United States.
The Ultra podcast has two seasons and goes in-depth into previous attempts by fascists at taking over the US government.
Sitting members of Congress aiding and abetting a plot to overthrow the government. Insurrectionists criminally charged with plotting to end American democracy for good. Justice Department prosecutors under crushing political pressure. Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra is the all-but-forgotten true story of good, old-fashioned American extremism getting supercharged by proximity to power.
When extremist elected officials get caught plotting against America with the violent ultra right, this is the story of the lengths they will go to… to cover their tracks.
Thanks for the recommendation. Giving it a listen currently.
Ultra is SO GOOD
It left me disgusted with the US's long flirtation with fascism yet hopeful that we can overcome it.
I'd like her to do another season about the business plot.
Literally the first novel ever written "Sinuhe" speaks of a very similar crisis in ancient Egypt.
Take a serious look at the collapse of the Soviet Union, the gutting of the Commonwealth, and the rise of Russia under Yeltsin, then Putin. I'm not sure of any fictionalized works that examine this in any detail, but the aftermath and the new reality is well-described in Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev. Link is a 10 year old review in the Guardian.
The falls of other empires would also be instructive. There is an excellent podcast/YouTube channel, the Fall of Civilizations(YouTube Link)(Spotify Link). In listening, I found several parallels to the first Trump presidency. I haven't listened in years.
A paper-thin skinned hegemon leads a dying empire against his staunch allies. I fed this prompt to ChatGPT and it handed me back Dune by Frank Herbert and Foundation by Isaac Asimov.
There is also Adam Curtis's series TraumaZone, showing tons of footage shot in the USSR during it's collapse.
Episodes are around on YouTube.
Wow. Hadn't heard of this one. Power of Nightmares and the Century of Self are among my favourite docs.
Any sci-fi by Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley Phillip K.Dick, some by Robert Heinlein iirc.
There's also a couple by Cory Doctorow that fit to the tee.
The Great Dictator
Player Piano by Vonnegut
The movie Her. It’s really close and accurate to ChatGPT, but worse.
You wish, that thing actually worked. What we have is a bullshit generator with the confidence of a brother in law.
I've found the expanse to be somewhat loosely analogous, but making the associations is a bit of a stretch I guess.
UN is America, Mars is Israel, Belters are Palestinians or other brown folk.
Or they're any number of similar analogues.
Spoilers from the last books (post the current end of the show)
! The entire premise of the current leadership is endless unchecked growth
! This mirrors the Laconian goal of superiority through holding onto what's basically a free infinite energy machine, only it's not really free, it's just being stolen from neighboring universes who's very advanced inhabitants really don't like that.
! We see the same hubris from the people in charge thinking that just a little more control or a little more power will be enough to save us, when really the answer is to let go and stop trying to control everything