To get the bad things out of the way: Idiocracy is a masturbatory film about how stupid people are ruining society by reproducing too much, i.e. eugenics. Its dire message about society "dumbing down" came out after decades of rising educational achievement in the united states. And it does not portray fascism as the driving factor which is strangling us.

That said...

We don't have "redneck reproduction gone rampant", but we do have Conservative thought being intentionally and successfully propagated through institutions of lawschools and government planning and news media and whatnot. It's kind of like the intro to Idiocracy, if you squint!

And, you have to hand it to the liberals constantly saying "this is just like Idiocracy". Like, "In 2025, President Donald Trump elected WWE founder Linda McMahon to Secretary of Education" sounds like a throwaway joke from the film.

The film depicted corporate interests explicitly and deeply intermingling with the US Govt, to the point where Gatorade owns the FDA. I remember thinking at the time, "Wow, corporate corruption in the pure US Govt? That would be so bad!" (lol). Now I understand that the film was simply extrapolating from current conditions. And now? It's basically happening.

The film also depicted crumbling infrastructure amid total climate collapse. I am writing this from a state in the North East United States, which is suffering a lengthy drought. It was also 70F today, in mid November. My walk was pleasant despite being a portent of doom to come, and notches another mark on Idiocracy's belt.

It's at this point where I'd like to point out "some regular guy from 2006 wakes up today and comments on things" as a wild fantasy. I would LOVE someone, who went into a coma in 2006, to wake up and just remark on things. I might be libbing out here, and I know I'm eight years late, but "President Donald Trump"? That's still mind boggling.

On a final note, remember what I said, about "educational achievement"? With DeVos and covid, the state of K-12 educational achievement is dire. The stats bear this out, but the anecdotes from my highschool teacher friend make me more concerned than climate collapse. The kids are not alright.

I'm seeing this a lot on the internet, too. You'll see comments on social media decried as "yapping" for having ~150 words (about 1 minute of reading for normal 5th grade literacy achievement). People will make fun of you for using a thesaurus for middle-school level words. I have a friend whose 11-year old American-born nephew does not know how to read.

The film's introduction is very very eugenicsy, but the rest of the film's worldbuilding elaborates on the decline as a result of antiintellectualism as much as it's a result of antinatalism. I'm wondering if trust in science was only a temporary result of excitement for the year 2000.

I only learned during the writing of this post that Idiocracy was unable to secure marketing, owing to its "corporations will kill us" message, and was a box-office bomb.

I think Idiocracy gets a bad rap. As one movie that exists primarily for entertainment, it's a pretty poignant and mildly-anticapitalist message.

Some of the images from the movie -- of the dust storms, of cars driving along and off a broken bridge, of a doctor malpracticing with a diagnostic tool -- all stuck with me.

I really, really wish I could say Idiocracy was just a stupid movie with no point or relevance, but,

TLDR: you gotta hand it to Idiocracy, I am losing my mind. Gaetz? RFK Jr? Mass deportations? WWE? Trump??? come on

I think it can just be a mediocre movie that is bad in a lot of ways, but also, relatable in a lot of ways, which is also very bad,