It would have made an excellent black comedy. The leaders of a political party, having taken a beating from 8 years of their president's clownish buffoonery that led to intractable wars and world economic collapse, are desperate to find a new leader to re-energize their ranks. Their situation is so dire that many of the fold defected to elect a black liberal president, and this cannot stand.
It's hard for folks out of work and scared of losing even more to relate to millionaire white lawyers. So...who to prop up in place as the new figurehead of hate, division, fear, and intolerance? Ah ha! A 40-watt lightbulb snaps on.
Make it a woman. Make it a good-looking woman. Make it a good-looking woman with a family. Make the family seem more down-to-earth by including a special-needs infant and a pregnant teenager. Make the woman not too smart; people don't like women who seem bright and therefore uppity and harsh. Put some glasses on the woman and put her hair up so she seems not quite as dumb as she actually is. Give her a gun or two because that makes her seem strong and guys like chicks holding guns.
Give her all the old, tired, and easy-to-remember rabble-rousing cliches to use like "take back our country," "Washington has broken faith with the people that they are to be serving," "big government, big debt," "common sense conservative values," "elites in Washington," and "media lies." Have her keep repeating them in a loop, completely ignoring that her party is supposed to serve all people, not just some, that her party's leaders ran up the national debt at the highest rates yet, that most in her party are in fact elites in Washington, and have plenty of their own "fair and balanced" media outlets to spew falsehoods.
Have her remind people that it is simply not acceptable to have others avail themselves of the democratic process. There is only one right way, she must say, because people hate to be confused with complexity, shades of gray, and long, difficult rebuilding. It's far easier to blame and divide and stereotype others, to take advantage of ever-present bubbling and barely-concealed racism, and to completely gloss over the fact that a broken health care system was ensuring sick and destitute lives for millions of citizens, both employed and unemployed, poor or once-well-off, as medical bills started pouring in past what any insurance would ever pay.
Yes, this would have been a most wicked film farce. However, those running the theater popcorn concession be forewarned -- those popping kernels might be mistaken for gunshots.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman