Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's loss to Republication candidate and now President-elect Donald Trump is astonishing to many, while completely believable to an equally large number of people. There are various reasons being thrown around to explain Clinton's loss to Trump. Ahead of the election date, American mainstream media had cornered Donald Trump and his rather vile, racist and misogynist temperament. There was a huge wave of outrage against Donald Trump, with many envisioning an apocalyptic scenario if Trump did win. Supporters of Donald Trump, who had otherwise expressed their contempt for establishment politics were unsure of Hillary Clinton as President of the United States of America.





Hillary Clinton's campaign was proven to be corrupt for having rigged the primaries to ensure that Bernie Sanders did not get the Democratic nomination. Meanwhile, the Clinton Foundation is considered untrustworthy and corrupt by the American people as well for having amassed vast quantities of wealth, thanks to corporate donations. Trump supporters chose to believe in a rank outsider who challenged the political establishment, which was true for Bernie Sanders's supporters as well.

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However, mass media and opinion leaders tend to picturise and would like to believe that Clinton was rejected because majority of America is misogynist and cannot stand seeing a woman in power. While there is no data to support such an argument, saying that a majority of American people, including women, cannot tolerate a woman as their President is an 'educated assumption', so to speak.



In the above segment from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, an American woman is quoted as saying, "Presidency is a man's job" and argues that, "A female has more hormones. She could start a war in ten seconds."

Hmm, America is misogynist. Well, how true is that?

If Robocop and Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoven's Palme d'Or nominated French film Elle is anything to go by, well, women, when put in a position of immense power, might just be cut a lot of slack on account of being the more vulnerable sex. Elle revolves around a very powerful and accomplished head of a video game company, named Michelle, (played by Isabelle Huppert) who gets raped in the beginning of the film. Michelle, however, extracts a cold-blooded and perhaps, too extreme a revenge from her rapist. In the meantime, the character is shown to be a manipulative person who exploits her ex-husband, child, employees and even her neighbour for her own selfish interests.



Perhaps, at the heart of Elle, lies the vicious understanding that a woman with too much power is fatal for the society. Maybe, such thinking is too ingrained and generations, conditioned to think so, wouldn't really think of Hillary in flattering ways. Especially, when Hillary Clinton's name has been mired in controversy after controversy accusing her of abusing her power.

And what about Donald Trump?



The 2006 film Idiocracy, written and directed by Family Guy creator Mike Judge, echoes a vision of an America in a dystopian future where the country is in shambles from excessive corporate rule and mind-boggling influence of the entertainment industry. In Idiocracy's America, the population is morbidly idiotic with people speaking English in bits and parts. Human beings are named after corporate products in a society proudly anti-intellectual. A soft drink has replaced water, as the company owning the drink has bought FDA, USDA and FCC. Meanwhile, the American president is a professional wrestler who is named President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.

Stark similarities there, no? Between the professional wrestling president Camacho and Donald Trump, who has made multiple appearances in World Wrestling Entertainment's flagship show WWE RAW? Between the anti-intellectual, insensitive America of Idiocracy and the hordes clamouring for a wall today or asking for the government to evict African-Americans, Muslims, Hispanics and Latinos from US soil? Between a society drugged on reality television and entertainment media in Idiocracy and contemporary America which elected a reality TV celebrity as their president?

In hindsight, The Simpsons episode Bart to the Future which predicted Donald Trump as US President in the year 2030, made sense. Hell, this is 2016.

What appeared then, in 2000, as outlandish and over-the-top writing has become reality today with the rise of political nativism and America progressively becoming more reactionary. When The Simpsons writer Dan Greaney was asked why he chose to make Trump president in the episode, he said, "It was a warning to America. And that just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane."

When artistic visions come reality... ain't that the artist's ultimate fantasy?

