This week Donald Trump was put on trial by a liberal prosecutor on what seems like the most nakedly political of the multiple charges that he’s facing.
This fairly pitiful scene made an interesting accompaniment to the country’s biggest movie at the moment, Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” which depicts a version of contemporary America riven by civil strife, with various secessionist forces at war against a dictatorial president who’s stayed on for a third term.
That president is clearly a Trump-like figure, but the movie is extremely light on politics; it’s mostly interested in juxtaposing scenes of brutality — mass graves, tortured prisoners, firefights and summary executions — with the familiar American landscapes of shopping malls, carwashes and the pillars of the White House.
We aren’t supposed to ask for detailed how-we-got-here explanations; we’re just supposed to meditate on how easily It Could Happen Here.
Some people who like “Civil War” find the political lacuna admirable, since it cuts the movie free from current ideological preoccupations and lets us take the antiwar message straight.
Persons:
Donald Trump, MAGA, Alex Garland’s “, who’s, it’s, we’re, ”
Organizations:
Trump, White
Locations:
York, carwashes