CARTOON: ‘Idiocracy’

From cartoonist Clay Jones about “Idiocracy” the cartoon, “Idiocracy” the movie, and “Idiocracy” our nation

The 2006 film “Idiocracy” is about a future where mankind dumbs down. Society consists of nothing but stupid people. A man from our present is put into a deep sleep and wakes up in this future, and he’s persecuted for being smart. Does that sound familiar? Not the waking up in the future part but the part about being ridiculed for being intelligent.

In this fictional future, quantity is placed above quality. Carl’s Jr sells Extra Big Ass Fries and Extra Big Ass Tacos. Entertainment includes an Oscar-winning movie titled “Ass,” and that’s all it is: one ass. The top television show features nothing but hits to the groin (Have you ever seen TruTV? They have shows that revolve around people injuring themselves). People get degrees at Costco (Trump University, anyone?).

Science is disregarded for commerce. A Gatorade-like drink is used to water crops, and the government wonders why nothing is growing. Cities suffer massive landslides of garbage.

The film is set hundreds of years in the future, but it seems we’re not that far off. We have elected officials that ignore science, even when nearly every scientist in the world tells them climate change is a problem. They watch cities and even nations (the Marshall Islands are disappearing) get ravaged by climate, and they believe it doesn’t exist because it snows in Buffalo in January. The chairman of the Senate committee of Environment and Public Works is throwing snowballs on the Senate floor. In the movie, they don’t want to put water on crops because water is what’s in the toilet.

Republicans refute Bill Nye the Science Guy because his title rhymes with his name and he wears a funny tie. They hate scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson because he puts science over religion and they consider him a geek. In the film, they say of the smart guy that “he talks like a fag.”

The one area the future in this film doesn’t exhibit is mass racism, which is something today’s Republican party is inviting.

Today we have candidates who lie and after being caught, defend the lie, and their supporters still believe them. They pander to xenophobia and racists and then wonder why their party is full of so much hatred. The top candidates for the GOP nomination has zero to very little public office experience. The top candidate in the polls is running on a platform of replacing Obamacare with “something better.” Voters who don’t like Obama because he’s an elitist with a high opinion of himself love Donald Trump. People believe the answer to gun violence is more guns, which would be like fighting cancer by introducing more cancer. A town in North Carolina has rejected a solar farm because they believe it will “suck up all the sun’s energy.”

I don’t believe the Republican party is stupid. Not all of it anyway. I don’t think all of the candidates are unintelligent. But they are definitely selling policies to those who are. Fear, hate, and dumb solutions are top sellers. They are all in a contest for the stupid vote.

Maybe this cartoon is stupid. If so, it should be a big hit.