The purge movies are interesting to me. They came out when I was already and adult, so I missed the cultural moment. If you watch the movies, the plot is patently stupid (if not emotionally gripping) -- so stupid, that I was really surprised to find out how much they resonated with people. Governments don't benefit from violence, and normal everyday people wouldn't want to be violent one day year. Most violent people are regularly violent; they beat their girlfriends for years, and finally kill one of them. They have a long, long rap sheet or an active warrant while they fight the police after being pulled over. etc. Further, general mass violence is extremely destabilizing to governments because most people abhor it, and a government that cannot prevent mass violence is a government with no validity.

The idea that a movie could get so many basic things so badly wrong, that it could float a scenario that made zero sense, but still gain such cultural traction was one of the first times I felt old. It's speaking to a youth with crazy and new ideas. They're ready to make their own grand and terrible mistakes, which a future youth will one day hate them for.