TV Shows as Democrat Explanations

Back in the early seventies, I picked up on a trend in the fare being shown on television. In every movie where some crazy dude was garroting or eviscerating innocent and beautiful female co-eds, the killer turned out to have had some horrifying experience in Vietnam that drove him over the edge. It wasn't really his fault, was the message. Had he never gone to war, he might never have turned into a savage. That was the message the anti–Vietnam War Left was trying to sell America at the time. Since then, there's been an endless run of pro-Left, anti-right sitcoms and movies, from Archie Bunker to The American President to Platoon to name-that-flick. Sometimes subtly and sometimes not, they take the Left's positions on political issues and present them in the most flattering, irresistible way possible.

One technique is what I call a Democrat explanation. It makes an innocuous-sounding layout of an issue, such as abortion, by calling it a right to choose and making it sound like no big deal. It studiously avoids damning detail, such as sonograms of live babies in the womb or video of babies in the womb fighting for their lives against the murderous curette. Without actually lying, the Democrat explanation gives a wholly inadequate impression of what actually happens, hence what the issue is really about. Over this summer, I've gotten into HBO's Game of Thrones and a pair of NetFlix series, first Shooter and then Designated Survivor. The striking thing is how all three work assiduously, if subtly, to buttress the leftist worldview with Democrat explanations on steroids. GoT is an entertaining parallel history of Europe, stuck forever in a Middle Ages sort of time warp that goes on and on for millennia. It has handsome heroes and beautiful heroines caught up in endless struggles to be top dog (monarch). It has fire-breathing dragons, corrupt churchmen, insane kings, savage wars, inter- and intra-family subterfuges, etc., all so well done that it captures the imagination and keeps you watching eight seasons' worth of episodes. How does it tilt left? There are obvious ways: full frontal nudity. Near-porn sex. Vile language. But also in more subtle ways. One guy dies seven times and keeps coming back. Asked what it's like "on the other side," he has no recollection at all. One of the heroes also comes back. He avers that all he encountered upon dying was blackness. No light in the distance, no hovering above himself, no talking with God such as we've become accustomed to from people who've died and come back. Neither God nor Jesus is ever mentioned, and religious people all come across as strange or nutso or, rarely, as learned men. These are just some examples. The story weaves the threads skillfully and entertainingly, but preachy leftiness shines through in the actors' casual acceptance of moral ambiguities as they rush by. It's true that the acting is superior and the beauties, well, beautiful. Shooter is about a former Marine sniper accidentally caught up in a conspiracy to take over the government. From clues and hints, we surmise that the bad guys are far-right loons whose tentacles reach high into the federal government. Montana and private militias dutifully make their appearance. Former military men abound as mercenaries for hire. We oldsters recognize possible allusions to the John Birch Society of the fifties. Every effort is made to make these guys look like skinheads. Designated Survivor (D.S.) is very much the most dogged of the three at presenting left-wing talking points via Democrat explanations. It relates the adventures of a guy who becomes president by virtue of being the sole surviving Cabinet member of a right-wing attack on Washington that decapitates the entire government, including all members of all three branches. This fellow comes across the way liberals want to see themselves: always caring, always putting the human factor first in any crisis, always decent, unfailingly polite, quietly brave in a crisis, always the considerate, reasonable voice. The story proceeds with the president approvingly running through most pet lefty causes: gun control, government jobs programs, gender pay gap, etc., to standing ovations and sympathetically nodding heads with heartwarming violins in the background. GoT and Shooter have reasonable mixes of strong men and strong women. In D.S., the men tend to shrink at the critical moment or only to rise to the occasion because of strong women giving them backbone. Even the president is indecisive. Every one of the really strong, forceful characters (besides the bad guys) is female, who do also take time now and then to cry and show us their vulnerable side. Shooter and D.S. both came out around 2016. Their scripts give the distinct impression of trying to prepare America to expect a coup attempt by the right, either during or after that year's election. In real life the Left attempted the coup, but in a movie, you usually see what you expect to see. In these three series, lefties will swoon at the heroes overcoming (or sneering at) the Evil Right. We in the center and to the right just see leftist propaganda, presented more skillfully and entertainingly than usual but just as surely there in these series-long Democrat explanations.