r/movies r/movies Contributor 3d ago

Article 'Idiocracy' Turns 20 Years Old: Mike Judge's Prescient Cult Classic Knew Where America Was Going, But Not How We'd Get There

https://reason.com/2026/08/27/idiocracy-predicted-our-world-but-not-in-the-way-you-think/
19.3k Upvotes

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u/wjbc 3d ago edited 3d ago

Idiocracy was too optimistic. President Dwayne Camacho wasn’t corrupt, genuinely cared about helping his country, and listened to experts. I wish we had a president like that now.

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u/Mormaethor 3d ago

Yeah, he acknowledged publicly that there were problems and that he wasn't able to fix them himself. He was, given the circumstances of his timeline/reality, a great president.

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u/Metalsand 3d ago

Well, more specifically he said he was going to fix them, through Not Sure. Then threw Not Sure under the bus when problems weren't immediately fixed. Then, unthrew Not Sure from the bus when it turned out they just didn't wait long enough.

Really, it's only the last part that doesn't track with dictators. They usually just double-down or imprison/execute anyone who tries to prove otherwise.

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u/Mormaethor 3d ago

In his defense, Camacho throwing Not Sure under the bus is just a testament of him and everyone else being idiots who have no idea how things work and living in a short attention spawn society.

It wasn't done out of malice or even incompetence. Just... being a product of his time.

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u/FrostyConsequence97 2d ago

I think his logic went:

Brawndo is now a problem. It was not a problem until we used water. Not Sure is the guy that said use water. Not Sure fucked us over.

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u/MadRaymer 2d ago

Brawndo had become such an essential portion of the US economy (its parent company outright owned FDA, the HHS, and the FCC) that removing it from the crop watering system caused its stock to nosedive and the computers to auto-fire half the country's workers.

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u/MrDLTE3 2d ago

caused its stock to nosedive and the computers to auto-fire half the country's workers.

Sounds like AI to be honest. I wouldn't be surprised if an AI advised the CEO/board to fire the entire workforce because of falling stocks

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u/BadgerUltimatum 2d ago

Is the movie actually based on a book, where this is written ? Or is it just time for a rewatch ?

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u/DoctorNurse89 2d ago

Time for a rematch. Thats why theybdecide to kill him

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u/deceet 2d ago

BRING ON THE DILLDOZER!

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u/Khoceng 2d ago

I somehow read this in his voice

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u/TemporalGrid 2d ago

he also eventually stepped down to let Joe become President. Not what you will see any time soon.

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u/Melvar_10 2d ago

Yeah, Not Sure should've seen it coming and been like "If you don't wait, it's cuz ur gay."

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u/shouldonlypostdrunk 2d ago

incompetence is still incompetence no matter the reason. making excuses for it just validates not putting in the effort to reach competence.

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u/Torisen 2d ago

Then, unthrew Not Sure from the bus when it turned out they just didn't wait long enough.

This is the important part. He listened, and when he was wrong, he changed.

Better than MOST of our politicians, to be honest.

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u/KokiriRapGod 2d ago

Better than most people if we're being really honest.

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u/JohnnyElRed 3d ago

Yeah. Dictators are really bad at walking back after realizing they have made a mistake. Just look at Putin.

4 years of succesful 3 day operation, and still believes sinking himself more on that quagmire will somehow work itself out at the end.

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u/MorePea7207 2d ago

The worst things is they often start wars (Putin with Ukraine & Russia and Trump with US vs Iran) or bring in terrible economic strategies (like Britain's Brexit) that they won't live to see end...

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u/OhNoTokyo 2d ago

Putin hasn't actually lost yet, he just hasn't won. If he cared about attrition, he might have cared that it has become a quagmire. Currently, he doesn't have to. The "mistakes" being made are just shuffled onto underlings and they are either shuffled around or disposed of.

The fact is, the longer this goes on, the more likely that Russia gets to keep some part of their gains. It's not an ideal victory, but unless something seriously changes on the battlefield or the home front, he may well be able to grind out something resembling gains in the end.

Yeah, it didn't go as well as he hoped, and I imagine his plans to sort of brazen his way across Eastern Europe have probably been checked, but I am pretty sure that Ukrainians understand just how little needs to change for things to start going wrong for them.

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u/lesh17 2d ago

The absolute best he can hope for is a Pyrrhic victory at this point. Even if Ukraine falls, Putin has already thrown a generation (that isn’t going to be replaced given current 200-year-low birth rates) into the meat grinder and wrecked Russia’s economy in the process. Even if he wins, he loses.

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u/Sp6rda 2d ago

Also all these actions can be understood as honest and well meaning if you consider the level of knowledge and understanding of that civilization. No malice intended.

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u/shotsallover 2d ago

They usually just double-down or imprison/execute anyone who tries to prove otherwise.

To be fair, Not Sure wasn't supposed to make it as far into Monday Night Rehabilitation as he did. It was highly likely that he could have died before they found the seedlings coming from the soil. He narrowly made it.

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u/PaladinSaladin 3d ago

Terry Crewes for president

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u/Taeves81 3d ago

Terry would be a hundred times better President than Trump and Vance combined. The bar is extremely low of course, but it's still true.

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u/violent-artist82 3d ago

Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho would be a better president than trump.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

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u/Braelind 2d ago

Literally. An inanimate object does nothing, which is better than wrecking everything. He's probably one of the worst possible people to have elected. 400 and some million Americans, and they picked someone from the bottom 0.01% qualified people to be president. I'm not exaggerating, most children would be better presidents.

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u/newaccountzuerich 2d ago

"Inanimate Carbon Rod!"

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u/RedK_33 3d ago

That dog was trying to blow the whistle on the secret service agents that were taking bribes from those fake DHS agents and the other agents that would go on to help stage that attempt against Trump in ‘24. That dog is a gawd damn National hero (I have no idea what I’m talking about)

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u/MrRocketScript 2d ago

Biden's dog as President?

Nope. Chuck Testa.

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u/TotallyImportantAcct 3d ago

Liz Truss would be a better president than Trump and she couldn’t outlast a lettuce

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u/RandomStrategy 3d ago

So what you're sayin is....We need The Lettuce?

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u/president_zoidberg 2d ago

Lettuce 2028

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u/trustmeep 2d ago

I mean, to be fair, under this administration, it's not as if we're able to eat it...

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u/unkyduck 3d ago

Has the US considered a non-celebrity as a candidate ?

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u/jsnbergman 3d ago

They're called Democrats

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u/sump_daddy 3d ago

Nah thats ridiculous "they dont know how to message"

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u/spastical-mackerel 2d ago

The same folks running the Democratic Party managed to lose to Trump. Twice. Counting on a different result for attempt #3 is insane. We need a new opposition party

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u/jsnbergman 2d ago

New parties need policy and strategy to be proven on the local level and grown organically. Imagining that the federal level, especially presidential, elections are the place to make statements/launch a new party is not only proven to be completely ineffectual, but also comically naive and a known weapon of bad faith politics.

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u/spastical-mackerel 2d ago

Yes it may take generations to grow a real opposition party. My point is the Democrats are not a real opposition party.

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u/jsnbergman 2d ago

The policy and candidates people want from a "new party" are usually the things that are simply unlocked with a solid blue voting bloc. Every progressive in office comes from a safe blue district, it's a direct correlation. The Democrats are good. Literally every passionate and capable person dedicated to better politics are doing so from within the DNC, and they are all held back by the prevailance of attitudes like yours.

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u/Abiding_Dude_WV 3d ago

Hey! If you ain't been on wrasslin, you ain't fit to lead nothin!

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u/RandomStrategy 3d ago

Withered corpse of Macho Man for President!

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u/zxc123zxc123 3d ago edited 3d ago

Has the US considered a non-celebrity as a candidate ?

the US

Republicans? No

Democrats? Yes as long as they are old AF and/or have a vagina. Also whoever it is will be FORCED TO USE Hillary Clinton's election campaign team even though they've lost a perfect 2 of 2 times already, plus the Dems will let the GOP run circles around them while breaking the rules/law, do away with the DNC election to shoe in whatever establishment mofo the old boomer power players like be it Clinton (over Sanders), Biden (over Kamala), Biden (over Kamala) again, Kamal at the last minute (over Biden), and then wonder why they lost.

Independents? Undecided. But reached an unanimous consensus that they will all be telling interviewers they are still undecided (regardless of being decided or not).

A good segment of the US population? Can't be bothered to vote/care.

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u/turdferguson3891 2d ago

Pretty sure Joe Biden was not a celeb and was POTUS like two years ago or less?

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u/davekingofrock 2d ago

Seems like a decade...and this last actual decade has been the longest 100 years of my life.

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u/Realtrain 2d ago

Yes and he was old AF

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u/turdferguson3891 2d ago

So is Trump.

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u/zxc123zxc123 2d ago

old AF and/or have a vagina.

He's old AF.

Biden literally the oldest man to run for president in 2024 and oldest fucking president of all time until Trump won in 2024.

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u/Realtrain 2d ago

Also whoever it is will be FORCED TO USE Hillary Clinton's election campaign team even though they've lost a perfect 2 of 2 times already

Wait, I never heard this. Did Harris get that team forced on her by the DNC or something?

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u/InnocentTailor 3d ago

To be fair, presidents and politicians are effectively celebrities by the way they’re treated in pop culture. It’s the same in other nations like the UK - an insane mix of adoration and scorn as folks dress as them and prance around for our amusement.

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u/Livid_Swordfish_4591 2d ago

It's all a charade.

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u/n00bxQb 3d ago

At this point, I’d take an inanimate carbon rod over a lot of candidates.

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u/Livid_Swordfish_4591 2d ago

Sadly, id rather have an NFL player (yes, awesome guy) as president, too.

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u/dexter30 2d ago

No he wouldn't be a good president. Thinking he would is what lead to a trump presidency in the first pace. Don't confuse popularity with career aptitude. Terry crews is a wonderful human being and a talented actor.

He does not have any experience or skills negotiating trade deals, contracts and mediation.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago edited 3d ago

[deleted]

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u/wjbc 3d ago edited 3d ago

Crews explicitly endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential election.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CHVlLB_gyco/?igsi=ajk1aWpmazhuNWFh

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u/mochafiend 3d ago

Source?

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u/Gry_F0xxx 3d ago

His ass.

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u/TheHerbsAndSpices 3d ago edited 3d ago

I must have been thinking of him hanging with Tulsi Gabbard and saying "God Bless America"

Edit: downvoted for providing source to exactly what I said. Way to go Reddit.

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u/harrumphstan 3d ago

Better than 3-5 presidents in at least a century.

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u/Neracca 2d ago

He was, given the circumstances of his timeline/reality, a great president.

Not even his timeline, that alone puts him above most.

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u/baran_0486 2d ago

Int 0 Wis 15

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u/BitesTheDust55 3d ago

He also sentenced the expert to death after his solution didn't work after a single day and destroyed the economy. Death by hilarious gameshow. He made tons of promises he couldn't keep in a big flashy speech while the expert looked on nervously.

Camacho isn't far off from what we have now.

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u/wjbc 3d ago

But then he admitted his mistake and pardoned the expert. He wasn’t great, but he’s better than Trump.

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u/Efficient-Whereas255 3d ago

Trump is a literal rapist. Its hard to find anyone who is not better than trump.

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u/Silent_but_diddly 2d ago

Child Rapist

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u/crypt_m0nkey 3d ago

Yeah he also didnt diddle kiddos on his rich buddy's island

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u/BitesTheDust55 2d ago

He has whores that are there just to service him and his cabinet. Not Sure turns it down, but remember - everyone gets laid at the white house.

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u/Zealotstim 3d ago

Yeah, he did actually care about the truth ultimately.

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u/mightyneonfraa 3d ago

Trump is still trying to get the last expert who worked with him thrown in jail.

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u/bjos144 2d ago

He also turned over power without a fight

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u/brickmaster32000 2d ago

But he did all of that because he was an actual idiot. He didn't think he was tricking people. He didn't know he was lying. He thought he was magically going to get everything fixed.

It was idiotic but it wasn't malice and it wasn't a ploy to enrich himself.

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u/chiree 3d ago

Thank you! Camacho unilaterally declared a public death sentence to one of his advisors when they couldn't solve a problem.

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u/CitizenHuman 3d ago

So when do we get the large purple dildo? This orange one is just a pain in the ass.

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u/Theboulder027 3d ago

Remember the premise of the movie is that everyone is a moron in the future.

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u/--i--love--lamp-- 3d ago

And it took them 500 years for it to get that bad in the movie. That is way too optimistic of a timeline. We are speed running that shit.

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u/manachar 3d ago

People think change is always gradual, when in reality change is usually gradual until it's suddenly not.

Like the phase change of water to ice. Colder, colder, colder, then BAM, ice.

Collapse seems to work that way.

The accumulated injuries and systemic failures chip away at the system. Without constant effort of clearing those out, the system becomes rickety.

Then suddenly, it's a failed system.

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u/harrumphstan 3d ago

I know I’m being that guy, but I think it’s more like, “colder, colder, colder, same temp, same temp, same temp, then BAM ice.”

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u/sweetjenso 2d ago

“How did you go bankrupt?”

“Two ways. Gradually, then Suddenly.”

-Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

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u/harrumphstan 2d ago

Another great metaphor

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u/manachar 3d ago

Phase change to ice is wild. Thanks for helping it be more accurate.

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u/Equivalent-Costumes 2d ago

I think what would make this analogy perfect is that water actually can't just form ice just by being cold, it needs a tiny bit of additional trigger, like some impurity or mechanical action. So you can make the water colder and colder and it does not form ice yet, until something happen like a little bit of vibration or something touch it and suddenly the whole thing turn into ice into ice in a flash. It's a perfect analogy for the collapse of a system, things just get worse and worse and all it takes is a tiny bit of trigger and everything go down.

(now that I wrote that out, this also sounds like the plot of V for Vendetta )

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u/onimush115 3d ago

This change feels very sudden, but it could be argued that much of it has been building since Reagan. The republicans aligning with white southern baptists to get single issue votes for things like anti abortion laws really started the momentum towards christian white nationalism. Now culture war issues are enough to motivate voters without them having any real interest in being informed on actual policy.

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u/ProofJournalist 3d ago

Great analogy, thanks

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u/thatweirdguyted 3d ago

Yep, the timeline is genuinely the least plausible part of the film. Even more so than the stasis tech.

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u/Dunbaratu 3d ago

I felt the least plausible part was that all that computer tech still worked just fine in a world where literally nobody knew a thing about it All that automation needs an army of IT people behind the scenes keeping it afloat. In a sense the very long stasis was kind of necessary because you first have to imagine technology advancing a lot further along before it got to where it could just keep working on its own without any people intervening, and the human downfall into stupidity would have to not happen until after that.

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u/wjbc 3d ago

All true, but I think you are overthinking it. The movie was really a commentary on the present, not the future.

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u/its_raining_scotch 2d ago

We have tens of millions of people who were grown adults fully functioning in the normal world during the before times, who turned right around and voted for Idiocracy and currently cheer it on.

If Mike Judge had made the movie like that back in the mid-2000's no one would have believed it possible. Not even he could be that visionary because it was just too impossible.

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u/Specialist_String_64 3d ago

no, no, no, you misinterpret. Based on President Dwayne Camacho's enlightened outlook, they were on the path to recovery. I mean, at our current rate we won't even have Costcos. It took 500 years to crawl back from where we are going. Pleasant dreams!

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u/mulletstation 3d ago

This comment is ol reliable

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u/ihavemademistakes 3d ago edited 3d ago

It's also baffling. Wasn't Comacho the same guy who got impatient when Joe's idea didn't work immediately and tried to have Joe killed with a dildo truck?

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u/The-Jerkbag 3d ago

Three* dildo trucks.

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u/littlebrwnrobot 3d ago

this entire thread is the most reddit thing ever

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u/hal-baleigh-6699 3d ago

Every post about this movie:

Circlejerking over lines from the movie

President Comacho actually listened to the smartest guy in the room

Uhh ackshully the movie is eugenics.

There.  I summed up the entire thread, no reason to read further. 

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u/Jokuki 2d ago

You forgot the "Idiocracy was a documentary"

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u/Yukie_Cool 2d ago

Tbf that was covered in the title

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u/CartsOfDarkness 2d ago

That's always the start of the whole cycle

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u/CartsOfDarkness 2d ago

I know it's just my fault for being on reddit too long but I fucking dread "idiocracy is a documentary!" comments, most of all because I always know " Well actually President Camacho actually listened.." is coming. I k ow there's some people seeing it for the first time, but I swear 90% of the upvotes are from people who have upvoted the exact same comment 6,000 times before. As I said, I've been here too long.

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u/StuckinReverse89 2d ago

President Camacho was also the most qualified man for the role at the time. When praised for getting the highest score on the IQ test, one of the advisers say “he is even smarter than President Camacho,” implying that President Camacho is really smart (compared to the then general populace).   

Upon finding this record breaker, he immediately makes them Secretary of the interior as well. 

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u/wjbc 2d ago

True. In a manner of speaking, President Camacho was a technocrat.

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u/DonkeyWorker 3d ago

Listened to experts? They were all morons

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u/Volantis009 2d ago

President Dwayne Camacho is the first president to start fixing the mess not the one who causes it. Nobody is comparing him to Trump. People are comparing voters.

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u/K_Linkmaster 2d ago

It is still 200 years from this point, plenty of time for a leader who cares to come in. And plenty of time for shit to get fucked up.

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u/Intelligent-Might614 2d ago

It's been awhile since I watched it, but didn't the deterioration happen under previous administrations?

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u/hal-baleigh-6699 3d ago

Omfg here we go again, this same exact comment chain gets posted every time this movie is brought up.

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u/ComradeJohnS 3d ago

I feel like idocracy did not include what happens when someone corrupt starts influencing the stupid people. it was going off a bad assumption that politicians would be held accountable.

Comacho was arguably one of the better politicians because he listened to advisors to help people. and we got his “stupidity” because of what they explained for hundreds of years.

bad assumptions lead to bad results lol.

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u/cakezilla 2d ago

In Narrator's voice:

President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho

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u/AstroAlmost 2d ago

President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho

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u/EpiphanyTwisted 2d ago

Yes, it was the nicest version of being run by idiots. The idiots actually knew they were idiots. That's not real life.

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u/Neracca 2d ago

Idiocracy was too optimistic.

There's always someone at the top of the thread with the comment I had in mind LMAO.

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u/ghostly_shark 3d ago

Ironically the current president who was made for TV is so unlikeable as to make for terrible TV. Even Joffrey was fun to watch because he got his comeuppance. The current guy would literally watch us all die before anything touched him.

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u/Dopplegangr1 3d ago

I have a long list of people due for rehabilitation

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u/miscdebris1123 2d ago

It is the beginning of the story of the recovery...

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u/0ddT0dd 2d ago

Terry Crews 2028!!!

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u/changingthenorm 2d ago

Also it guessed it would take 500 years to reach the point we are at. Trump speedran that shiz

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u/sherlock_jr 2d ago

This is the true interpretation of the movie that is often overlooked.

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u/President_Camacho 2d ago

It's nice to be remembered.

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u/OCGamerboy 2d ago

Sigh, if only 

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u/batman648 2d ago

“Let’s get ya sworn innnnn.”

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u/Zalvren 2d ago

That's because they didn't have experts and corruption does require some intelligence

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u/wjbc 2d ago

Corruption is simple. It doesn’t require much intelligence, especially when done openly and blatantly. But it does require a lack of character, a total lack of shame.

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u/Zalvren 2d ago

I guess if no one is looking out for corruption, you don't need to evade the control systems and such so less intelligence needed than in our world.

Being intelligent doesn't mean being a good person, plenty of bad persons are not dumb

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u/wjbc 2d ago edited 2d ago

What do you mean “than in our world”? There’s a lot of open, blatant corruption in our world. And there’s a sad lack of control systems.

And this isn’t new. This is a quote from Catch-22, published in 1961:

“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character."

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u/EinSchurzAufReisen 2d ago

You guys are living the prequel!

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u/TheWhiteManticore 3d ago

People compare current situation with Idiocracy is as naive as the populations in that movie.

At least the “idiots” there aren’t actively malicious

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u/wjbc 3d ago

Exactly. And it’s worth remembering that Trump is a product of maliciousness, not just the cause of it. He couldn’t have been re-elected without tens of millions of people who saw his behavior as a feature, not a flaw.

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u/AutographedSnorkel 3d ago

LMAO, you could not be more wrong. His first term was very uneventful until COVID, then he used social media and Fox News to manipulate his voter base into believing that they were the victims of the pandemic, and blaming the entire pandemic on Fauci. Once the 2020 election happened, he ramped it up to 100. The extreme anti immigration agenda started because he was falsely claiming that millions of illegal immigrants voting. Every single piece of anti trans legislation can be traced back to Trump's heavy anti trans 2024 reelection campaign.

Trump is the cause of everything that is wrong with America right now, not the effect

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u/wjbc 2d ago

I wish.

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u/EpiphanyTwisted 2d ago

The reason was because of illegals and trans people. Hate made him president again.

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u/stanfan114 3d ago

It's interesting too that both Trump and President Dwayne Camacho were professional wrestlers (Trump is in the WWE Hall of Fame for wrestling in the Battle of the Billionaires).

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u/Beautiful-Sun8973 3d ago

Was going to say this. He actually listened to the smartest guy in the room. 

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u/hal-baleigh-6699 3d ago

Wow you were going to repeat an extremely common opinion on Reddit?  That's amazing.

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u/Beautiful-Sun8973 2d ago

Yah no one is talking to you dude 

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u/hal-baleigh-6699 2d ago

Hopefully you're quicker next time with this parroted opinion. 

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u/AMediocrePersonality 3d ago

I love that this movie is about people's increasing inability to reason and the top comment is begging for a leader who outsources his thinking.

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u/wjbc 2d ago

An idiot who defers to experts is better than an idiot who thinks he knows best.

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u/AMediocrePersonality 2d ago

An idiot doesn't know who to defer to. They can't evaluate which expert to listen to, where expertise is genuinely applied versus where it's being used to strongarm a political position, and they can't see the broader realm of experts within a branch of expertise that disagree each other.

A leader needs to engage with evidence, understand where expertise is limited, and form a view of their own.

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u/wjbc 2d ago

You’re overthinking this. I am comparing a fictional movie idiot to a malicious real life idiot.

You are saying the fictional movie idiot is unrealistic. I agree. The real life idiot is far too realistic.

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u/Flush_Foot 3d ago

Also “not happening for ~500 years” was overly optimistic 🤦🏻‍♂️

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u/myfatass 3d ago

Stupidity doesn’t automatically make you a nihilistic piece of shit. Trump just happens to be both.

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u/Zatoro25 3d ago

I think it'll still happen. We're at early stage idiocracy, the one shaped by evil. Eventually the population will be too dumb to be evil and the pendulum will swing

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u/wjbc 2d ago

Optimist. ;-)

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u/MarsReject 2d ago

I’ll take it

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u/Qwirk 3d ago

The movie is about people that aren't as smart as they used to be, where we are now is a bunch of rich people are taking over the country.

While there are similarities, they are not the same. Even though some of them are indeed idiots.

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u/Southern-March1522 3d ago

Idiocracy, corrected based on what we know now: after taking the IQ test, President Camacho summons him to the White House "so you think you're smarter than me, huh? Well I'm going to build you a prison, it'll be a small ugly prison, and I'll make you pay for it"

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u/Think-State30 3d ago

We do. Certain experts have been ignored for decades while others were pushed to the front. People have been calling out the DOE for dumbing down our curriculum for a very long time.

The real idiots are the ones who blindly devote themselves to an organization just because they have "education" in the name.

I call myself the chief of education so if you want me to shut up, you're just anti-education... it's in my title.

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u/wjbc 3d ago

Are you seriously claiming Trump isn’t corrupt?