If you’re flummoxed by the current political landscape — one that sees self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders and Spy-proclaimed short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump at or near the top of polls in both of the first two primary and caucus states — you should check out a couple of movies currently in multiplexes: “The Big Short” and “13 Hours.”

Both films chronicle failures of the government. Both films are deeply critical of the status quo without doubling as overly partisan broadsides. And both films appeal to different, but similarly frustrated, audiences who view the political system as broken and the game of life as rigged.

“The Big Short” is likely to appeal to the Bernie Bros: those idealistic, socialistic sorts who see the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few people as the root of all our evils.

Like director Adam McKay, they’re willing to overlook and underplay the government’s unintentional inflation of the housing bubble and the average consumer’s own foolish housing purchases in order to spin a larger story about banker greed bringing down the economy and sending the country into a financial tailspin.

These people were promised hope and change and got neither from the financial reforms of the Obama era.

Who are they going to support this time around? Hillary Clinton, one of the biggest recipients of Wall Street money — both in terms of political spending and in terms of speaking fees — on the planet? An establishment politician who has not once in her quarter-century on the national stage shown any interest in holding the wealthy accountable?

Or Bernie Sanders, a pol whose commitment to the little guy is unquestioned?

“13 Hours,” meanwhile, is the sort of film that is sure to infuriate everyone who thinks we need to Make America Great Again. Michael Bay’s tale of six brave men struggling against bureaucratic cowardice and incompetence in order to save the life of an ambassador stuck at an indefensible compound has found a disproportionate share of its ticket buyers in red states.

It’s not just the film’s pro-America, rah-rah-military sentiment that would likely strike a chord with potential Trump voters, though. The script has a distinctly isolationist streak, taking a break from the action to allow one of the stars to muse on what he — and, by extension, America — is doing in the lawless desert of Libya. The film’s ambivalence about foreign adventurism resonates with Trump’s statements that Iraq was a folly and Syria should be left to strongmen in the region like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

If we consult Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory, we can better understand how “The Big Short” and “13 Hours” reflect the resentments and frustrations on the left and right alike.

“The Big Short” argues that the system has been set up to impoverish the little guy at the expense of the big kahunas. “You lost your house and these fatcats got seven-, eight-figure checks: How’s that fair?” it asks.

It’s tapping into the foundation of fairness, one of the pillars that liberals cling to more tightly than conservatives. Even if — perhaps especially if — the bankers didn’t do anything illegal, the fact that they suffered few repercussions as millions went homeless and jobless is abhorrent to the Sanders supporter.

“13 Hours,” meanwhile, appeals to those concerned with loyalty and betrayal. There may even be an argument to be made for the film on the “sanctity/degradation” axis that Haidt has identified: What is the sacking of an embassy or consulate but the violation of a sacred space by a horde of outsiders? Each one of these foundations is likely to appeal to the sort of voter drawn to a man like Donald Trump.

In short, these two films reflect something that Sanders and Trump have been able to tap into, something rarely seen with such ferocity in the American political system: unbridled, bipartisan populist resentment. It’s hard to think of a pair of more appropriate films for our current political conundrum.



Sonny Bunch is executive editor of the Washington Free Beacon.

