Believe it or not, it's been exactly 10 years since Mike Judge's Idiocracy debuted here in the good ol' US of A. The question, which we ask ourselves year after year, remains: Have we, as an American society in the year 2016, finally reached peak Idiocracy? Arguments have been made on both sides, though well-reasoned debates occur much less often than simple Tweets, movie quotes, or other protestations proclaiming the arrival of the Idiocracy and the downfall of utopian society after some flash-in-the-pan news headline. Then along came Donald Trump.
Trump's candidacy for President of the United States as the Republican Party's nominee and the repercussions of The Donald sitting in the Oval Office are things I take seriously; citing Idiocracy as a herald of the End of Days or damning Judge for a supposed slight on poor people and a pro-eugenics stance is something I find laughable. Idiocracy is, first and foremost, a comedy, and like the best comedies, there's a certain truth to it that's exaggerated and overblown for comedic effect. Judge's sharp satire has hit so close to home that high-and-mighty fans on both sides of the divide now cite the film as an illustration of whatever particular brand of injustice they believe is crippling American society at the moment. What's scarier than the moronic, dystopian tone of Idiocracy's look 500 years into the future is that, in certain cases, we might just out-dumb ourselves much sooner than that.
Scientific Research/Literacy
The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections.
Funding for scientific research--both through government and the private sector--goes hand in hand with scientific literacy: If the money for research doesn't exist to draw in talent, that talent will focus their pursuits elsewhere; if talent for research dries up, so will interest in scientific pursuits, thus decreasing the need to be scientifically literate over time. It's a vicious cycle, one which Idiocracy takes to an extreme. But are our nation's best scientists being forced into research on all things follicular?
Nah. I mean, scientists just discovered actual observable evidence of gravitational waves 100 years after Einstein theorized their existence. Sure, the vocally anti-science senator Jim Inhofe is currently the Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which watches over matters related to the environment and infrastructure; that could pose Idiocratic levels of problems for our nations highways, byways, and in-betweens from sea to shining sea If there wasn't a country full of concerned citizens from the public, private, and political sectors standing in the way of total disaster. And despite the dropping percentage of the amount of the federal budget going to R&D, total R&D spending is on the rise again. America still spends more money on R&D than the European Union and China. The NSF's funding hasn't plummeted, and most importantly, the USDA is still getting a healthy amount of capital; Brawndo has a long way to go before it buys its way into these organizations.
Environment
"Meanwhile, the population exploded, and intelligence continued to decline until humanity was incapable of solving even it's most basic problems. Like garbage, which had been stacked for centuries with no plan whatsoever leading to the Great Garbage Avalanche of 2505, which would set in motion the events that would change the world forever."
One of the most striking visuals in Idiocracy for me are the vast plains dominated by towering garbage heaps. What Judge decided to leave out of this particular view of the far-flung future were the people who make their living scouring these trash-filled wastelands for anything and everything they need to live through another day. While that sounds awful, what's worse is the massive landslides of refuse that occur far too often and cause human casualties in their wake.
Last year in Shenzhen, China, a man-made pile of construction waste collapsed on buildings in a nearby industrial park, causing 3,000 people to assist in a search-and-rescue operation. In 2011, a garbage dump landslide triggered by a typhoon in Baguio, Philippines buried 20 houses, killing at least three children. In 2008, a garbage dump landslide killed four people in Guatemala City, the capital of Guatemala; this came after a 2005 fire that tore through the dump when a burst of methane gas exploded, necessitating the construction of a wall and the prohibition of children in the dump. The problem isn't just confined to land, but also appears in the ocean, notably the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a.k.a. the Pacific trash vortex.
Entertainment
"Next on the Violence Channel, an all-new Ow! My Balls!"
Let's be honest, ever since the first caveman saw his caveman buddy get hit in the caveballs and laughed, there has been a place for simple, physical humor in humankind. It's easy to point at shows like America's Funniest Home Videos, Jackass, the more slapstick or prankster offerings of America's Got Talent, Wipeout and the like in order to illustrate how easily the mind slips away in modern times, but history has given us a proven track record of bawdy humor. We may not know just what the Average Joe will be laughing at in 2505, but thanks to researchers at the University of Wolverhampton, we know what passed for humor among ancient Sumerians:
"Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."
That's a real zinger; Slate's got a good selection of some puzzling bits of archaic humor as well. But it's not just humorous low-hanging fruit that entertains the world of America in the 26th century, it's also sex and violence. Again, no big surprise. Sex is the oldest pastime in human history, followed by violence, even by Biblical retellings. It's the ubiquitous and nonchalant nature of both in Idiocracy that serves up a dose of ribald humor and acts as a cautionary tale. When sex is readily available either through an entertainment system or at your friendly neighborhood Starbucks, it can be argued that the meaning of sex itself and its part in relationships will decline. Then there's the effect that ever-present sexual pressure over social media has on today's youth. As for violence, I see little difference between gladiatorial combat of the past, modern-day Monday Night Football, monster truck rallies, prize fights, and American Gladiators, and Idiocracy's "Monday Night Rehabilitation." The only difference now is that violence as entertainment has been monetized in a way to put it on par with the oldest profession.
Business
Brawndo - The Thirst Mutilator - had come to replace water virtually everywhere. Water, the basic component of all life, had been deemed a threat to Brawndo's profit margin. The solution came during the budget crisis of 2330, when the Brawndo Corporation simply bought the FDA and the FCC enabling them to say, do, and sell anything they wanted.
In my perfect world, businesses would push the boundaries of innovation while governments would regulate with a light touch, except in the cases where infringements on human, civil, and environmental rights required a heavy hand. The world of Idiocracy is far from perfect, but our own imperfect system is arguably even more frustrating. The root cause of 2505 America's problems was that the Brawndo Corporation replaced water with their electrolyte-packed sports drink, which caused crop failure, which resulted in dust storms. The fix was simple: turn the water back on. That one common-sense step provided the panacea needed to right America's sinking ship, even if it now floated on toilet water.
The world of 2016 America has equally idiotic problems, which prove much more intractable. Take the Flint water crisis, an epic failure of government with displays of ignorance, impotence, and indecency across multiple offices and organizations. Private industries are often even worse, though their cover-ups and lobbyist support tends to be more well-crafted than that of government institutions; and their reach runs just as deep if not deeper. The real concern in America right now is that private business spends about $600 million more a year--and climbing--on lobbying than we as taxpayers spend to fund both the House and Senate combined. So while it's not feasible for a Brawndo Corporation to just buy up the FDA and FCC, businesses can certainly purchase political influence for pennies on the dollar compared with what they'll get in return through contracts and pro-business legislation. And with businesses being consolidated under mega-corporation banners, relatively few wealthy individuals end up wielding a majority of economic power and control. This is what Bernie Sanders is warning people about when he talks about "moving rapidly away from our democratic heritage into an oligarchic form of society." (Via Bill Moyers)
Healthcare
"Uh, this goes in your mouth. This one goes in your ear. And this one goes in your butt."
Judge doesn't do subtlety well, but his most layered work in Idiocracy arguably comes during the hospital scenes. The facility in question--named St. God's Memorial Hospital, either as a nod to religion's role in healthcare, a reminder that the public is now too stupid to spell a saint's name, or both--is rundown like most of the buildings in this dystopian world. It's dirty, disorganized, and chaotic; the help at the front desk has been relegated to pushing simplified buttons based on the nature of the patient's ailment and even the robotic janitors are out of sorts. Computers do all the work, even when the human technicians invariably screw something up, and the closest thing the facility has to a doctor is a young, 20-something pothead played by Justin Long.
Despite what some political factions would have you believe, our healthcare system is certainly not in this bad a shape. Sure, pharmaceutical drugs are expensive, the wait-time to see a doctor is increasing due to demand outpacing availability, and politicians continue to hold healthcare hostage to secure their voting base as part of their war on women. We've got a long way to go before the standards of healthcare are on par with other developed nations in the world, but we're a far cry from nations who are plagued with the more manageable forms of disease that have long since been eradicated within the States; farther still from the sanitarium styling of what passes for medicine in Idiocracy.
Law Enforcement
"Okay, sir, now we will begin to proceed to obtain your I.Q. and aptitude tests. Okay, sir, this is to figure out what your aptitude's good at and get you a jail job while you're being a particular individual in jail."
The cops get a raw deal in Idiocracy. At best, they go about doing their job in a robotic, rote manner, "explaining" their actions to the apprehended citizen in question without any sense of compassion or comprehension. At worst, they physically abuse and brutalize suspected criminals without warning and shoot up a suspected felon's car to excessive and explosive levels, accompanied by an unruly mob. Unlike politicians, businessmen, and Hollywood types, police officers put their lives on the line every day. Are there bad apples, some of whom are rotten to the core? Absolutely. Is there a major problem in reporting or investigating instances of police brutality? You bet. But Idiocracy paints law enforcement as a lethal extension of the dumbed-down populace of America.
I think it's safe to say that our police officers and emergency response personnel would be right in taking offense if one were to compare them to Idiocracy's jackbooted thugs. Apathy and ignorance are quite concerning as defining traits of those men and women hired to protect the life, liberty, and property of citizens; what's more concerning is the militarization of local police in response to the threat of terrorism, regardless of how urgent that threat might be. What we're seeing in recent years is escalation, both on the side of the protesters who are fed up with police brutality and on the side of law enforcement officers themselves who have become increasingly defensive, fearful, and surprisingly well-funded. On the bright side, some of the money spent on the endless war on drugs is now being funneled to nullifying police abuse and increasing community outreach, which aims to keep Idiocracy from becoming a reality.
Politics
"I give you my word, he's gonna fix the dust storms too. And I give you my word, he's gonna fix the economy. And he's so smart, he's gonna do it all in one week."
I would have thought that former pro-wrestler-turned-actor Jessie "The Body" Ventura serving as the governor of Minnesota or bodybuilder-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger acting as governor of California would have been the closest we'd ever get to Terry Crews' delightfully over-the-top President Camacho. Then came Donald Trump. Though he clearly lacks the physique of Crews' U.S. President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, he somehow possesses a similar level of charisma with his particular brand of followers. And he hasn't even fired an assault rifle into the air or engaged in a televangelist style of preaching (yet).
Much like President Camacho, Trump travels to political events with an attractive retinue. They both seem more concerned with demonstrating their executive power through pomp and circumstance--such as Camacho's rock concert-like State of the Union address and Trump's terrifying "USA Freedom Kids" jingoistic song and dance routine--rather than any practical displays of leadership. Both men lean on their prior successes--Camacho's status as a five-time Ultimate Smackdown Champion and porn superstar, and Trump's combination of successful, bankrupt, and inherited business ventures--to validate their current worth. Perhaps most telling of all, both have reality-defying hairdos.
While there was every opportunity that Trump could have selected a virtual hologram of President Camacho as his running mate, the scariest thing about this whole run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election is that Trump stands an actual chance of winning. We barely had any idea of what Camacho's presidency was actually built on, but Trump's current plan isn't much more concrete than Idiocracy's fictional one. So while it's silly to think that Judge's satirical slant on American society will some day come true in all of its pseudo-prophetic glory, it's terrifying to think that a far worse reality could exist in our near future.
Back to less scary things for a moment: If you're concerned about a potential future like Idiocracy, I advise you to make sure you're an informed and active voter. It's worth noting that America 2505 was ultimately saved by an Average Joe--with "military intelligence"--who was forced to finally get off his ass and do something with his life, and a prostitute who managed to escape from her pimp (at least temporarily...) If they can save the country, surely we can do the same. A vote for Camacho is better than no vote at all. #Camacho2016
And personally, I'd love to see Idiocracy 2: Global Dumbination, if only to distract me from the horrors of Trump's first term as President of the United States.
