-Originally published April 2020
The new film, The Trump Presidency (2017), melodramatically set to be released just a day before the imminent inauguration of Mr. Trump, is ostensibly a sort of liberal nightmare, a speculative epic that imagines our soon-to-be president’s very worst traits careening the nation toward catastrophe and devastation. Though it benefits from fine performances and at times wild creativity, I found it tasteless, monotonous, overlong, and worst of all, implausible.
Even given Mr. Trump’s faults—and, as any objective observer knows by now, there are many—the movie simply fails to project a feasible vision for our country’s next four years, instead bouncing from one impossible episode to the next. In one sequence, for instance, now-President Trump openly threatens witnesses deposed by a special prosecutor about Russian involvement in the 2016 election—and indeed publicly berates the prosecutor himself—while suffering no legal or even political consequences. While this is dramatic and at times entertaining, I fail to see how congressional Republicans and even conservative journalists, most of whom are good, upstanding people, would stay silent in such a scenario; it’s as if White House activity in The Trump Presidency occurs within a vacuum, isolated from the checks that would certainly reign in or, if necessary, punish such behavior.
But this is just one ludicrous chapter among many. Other subplots, written evidently for sensationalism rather than conceivability, include the president having paid off a porn star (the week before election day, of course), who then graphically details their affair on, of all programs, 60 Minutes; his personal lawyer going to prison in connection with the same scheme; the government being shut down for a month with no apparent objective or result; whimsical nuclear threats being made toward multiple countries; and the president demanding that a vulnerable foreign government pretend to investigate Joe Biden to preempt his supposed 2020 candidacy (Trump, it should be noted, is subsequently impeached for this—but oddly, no one in the film seems to care).
Other imagined moments, especially those driven by Trump’s racial insensitivity, feel more authentic given his campaign rhetoric in 2016, but these, too, come off as overdone and ham-handed. Early in the film, a deadly neo-nazi-style rally—chillingly filmed—leaves the nation wounded, and Trump predictably fails the test of leadership. But rather than use the scene to develop the nuances of Trump’s ideology and personal flaws, the movie portrays him as almost a spokesman of the rally, robbing the moment of the poignancy it deserves. And later, when the administration sloppily attempts to enact the harsh anti-immigration measures it promised during the campaign—an admittedly inevitable moment—children and parents are subjected to treatment the likes of which aren’t fully describable here, but which, I’m not so cynical to doubt, would be swiftly curtailed by better heads if they were ever put into practice.
The film is ultimately a character study about a man, Donald J. Trump, fueled by petulance and narcissism. Indeed, his obsession with negative press coverage provides the true arc of its narrative. In the opening, Trump’s press secretary lies about the attendance of Trump’s inauguration, setting the tone for a barrage of chaotic misinformation—dubbed, in perhaps the film’s signature scene, as “alternative facts” by Kellyanne Conway—that only intensifies throughout Trump’s aforementioned misadventures in office. This quixotic quest is aided by the personalities at Fox News, who, in an impressive, dystopian twist, are seen not only to advance a pro-Trump narrative, but also at times to generate alarming policy ideas that Trump quickly adopts. (It appears that in this movie’s peculiar universe, the President has no more pressing responsibilities than to endlessly watch cable news.)
By the finale, the nation reaps the consequences of Trump’s addiction to convenient untruths, as he characteristically underplays a larger-than-life virus and blunders his way through the ensuing crisis, contributing to wide scale death and an economic meltdown. I found this an interesting, if overly fantastic ending, one that expands the film into a parable of sorts: a warning of the dangers of veering too far from facts and reality in our ever more personalized media bubbles.
Nevertheless, this idea drowns in chaos and spectacle; this film lacks the subtlety characteristic of better material. Mr. Trump will certainly have his failures in office, as all presidents do, but a portrayal as exaggerated as this accomplishes little, other than to aid those who would criticize his vocal opponents as hysterics.
I am no hysteric. I, for one, wish Mr. Trump success in his endeavors to improve our country for all Americans. As this is 2017, and none of these events have happened or will happen, now that I’ve finished writing this review I plan to go to the gym; and later I’ll meet my friends at the bar to watch a game; and tomorrow I’ll go to work at the hospital where I, of course, am completely safe; and this weekend I’ll see my grandparents; and I’ll continue to duly appreciate, as I often do, that most of the people in my life are healthy, employed, and out of harm’s way.
Yes, it’s a good time to be an American—don’t let the worriers get you down.
–Jim Andersen
For more on horror films, see my explanation of The Shining