If Idiocracy was made today, I wonder how far in the future they’d place it. In 2006, they thought 500 years which seems optimistic now.

Don't forget "the files are on my desk" and many other classics.

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” ~Hannah Arendt

Only the best people

The real paradigm shift is coming in 2028.

I don't think people appreciate enough how much it mattered that Trump was a celebrity buffoon/reality show personality for decades before "politics". Stupid people eat that up. Other Trumpy candidates have not been able to reproduce his success. Let's not assume this is the new normal.

Wat we are witnessing is not just traditional totalitarianism, but the emergence of a suicidal state driven by a fascist death drive.

Under MAGA, the state no longer pretends to be guided internally by reason and progress, but is instead founded on non progress and terror, a scorched earth approach to slashing government agencies, and the accelerated destruction of state institutions: rather than seeking to resolve societal crises, MAGA produces constant crises to feed off of, preferring to annihilate its own systems rather than stop the destruction.

Yes, the world has changed. We have entered a reality where insanity has become the goal of the authoritarians, ie the self-destruction itself is the actual end goal.

[dead]