trump_strangeloveI usually try to avoid getting political in this space, except in the case of truly extreme circumstances, such as if the republic were ever in danger of being taken over by an ignorant, xenophobic, narcissistic blowhard whose potential governing style (and personal grooming habits) could probably best be described as a combination of Richard Nixon, Dr. Evil and Pizza the Hut from Spaceballs. Oh, that is happening? OK, here we go then.

The fact of the matter is, even if everything anyone’s ever suspected of Hillary and Bill turned out to be true — They killed 46 people! She sent classified emails to Anthony Weiner on her AOL account using a dial-up modem! Her pantsuits are made of the dried carcasses of Bill’s mistresses! etc. — she’d STILL be better than Donald Trump. Because you could be reasonably sure she’d use her evil superpowers for the benefit of normal, everyday people, even if it’s just to cement her legacy as Best President Ever, which is clearly what she wants on her tombstone. Trump, on the other hand, would use his presidential authority mostly to worsen the lives of brown people and get back at Rosie O’Donnell.

So I figure I should at least be trying to convince those of you still contemplating a Trump vote that it’s not in the country’s best interests. And what better way to do that than to look back at some of your favorite fictional movies that, under a Trump administration, could actually start to look an awful lot like reality? (Excluding Ninety Eighty-Four, which was a little too on-the-nose.)

1) Red Dawn (1984). This was the movie where Russians invade America, specifically American high schools, and it’s up to a ragtag band of teenagers such as C. Thomas Howell to save the country. This will probably not happen when Trump ushers the Russians in, because a) C. Thomas Howell is now 49 and is probably exhausted and b) teenagers are too meta and ironic to defend anything these days, and if they try to take Trump and Putin down at all it will be through the use of Snapchat filters. This will go poorly.

2) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Frankly, there are multiple characters in this Stanley Kubrick masterpiece who have Trumpian elements to them, including Sterling Hayden’s paranoid, bodily-fluid obsessed Gen. Jack D. Ripper, Slim Pickens’ gung-ho dim bulb Major ”King” Kong, and even Peter Sellers’ unforgettable, indecipherable title character, obsessed as he was with the ”sexual characteristics” of female nuclear war survivors.. If you don’t think a Trump presidency wouldn’t at some point include the line ”Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the war room!”, then you haven’t been paying attention.

3) The Purge: Anarchy (2014). Full disclosure: I haven’t seen any of the Purge movies, wherein the U.S. has instituted a 12-hour period when all crimes are legal and, to quote Wikipedia, ”the nation’s impoverished population are no longer seen as people, but as living garbage, who the wealthy denounce as only living to serve their needs.” But it sounds like exactly the kind of idea Donald would Tweet about enthusiastically. (”Losers and lightweights complaining about being Purged — sad!” etc.)

4) Planet of the Apes (1968). This one’s a little bit more of a stretch, not because a Trump presidency wouldn’t reduce society to a collection of loincloth-wearing jungle mutes and leave the Statue of Liberty up to her nose in beach sludge — I’m sure it would — but because it seems unlikely that monkeys would suddenly start talking and wearing naugahyde jackets. Although that’s still more likely than Mexico paying for that wall he’ll never actually build.

5) Dawn of the Dead (1978 or 2014, just pick one). Granted, Trump’s platform, statements and general temperament indicate that his administration would be bad for women, minorities, Muslims, immigrants, workers, the middle class, journalists, GLBTQ people, POWs, Jeb Bush, Billy Bush and anyone who doesn’t want to be killed by riled-up terrorists or atomic bombs. However, I admit that none of his actions have indicated that they will cause the dead to rise from their graves and eat the brains of the living. But given how things are going, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.

So I’d recommend you binge watch these five flicks and then, if you’re still determined to vote for Trump, there’s nothing more I can do except hope you’re in the minority. Because sadly if you’re not, the resulting Purge is going to last a lot longer than 12 hours.

About the Author

Pete Chianca

Pete Chianca is a humor and music writer and author of Glory Days: Springsteen's Greatest Albums. He lives north of Boston with his wife, two kids and an indeterminate number of dogs and cats. Read more Pete at Pete's Pop Culture, Parenting & Pets Blog.

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