Blog archive
June 2025
Idiocracy, A Film Review
06/03/2025
A New Book Club and an Old Book Club: One is Silver and the Other Gold
06/02/2025
May 2025
A Day to Celebrate, Connect, and Empower: Older Americans Month at Victory Park
05/30/2025
End of Life: You Do Have Choices!
05/30/2025
Get Moving, Pasadena Village: Walking Toward a Healthier, Happier You
05/30/2025
Music: A Universal Language
05/30/2025
President's Message
05/30/2025
The New Grammar Guardian of Pasadena Village
05/30/2025
Undue Influence: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
05/30/2025
Village Within a Village
05/30/2025
What do we do now?
05/30/2025
Status - May 10, 2025
05/10/2025
A Tribute to Dad
05/05/2025
A Tribute to Mom
05/05/2025
A Board Director Perspective
05/02/2025
A Death Valley Adventure
05/02/2025
Ask an Architect
05/02/2025
Message from the President
05/02/2025
My 15-Minute City
05/02/2025
Neighboring Anew
05/02/2025
Scam Red Flags
05/02/2025
Sir Beckett, A Woman's Best Friend
05/02/2025
Volunteer Appreciation: Giving a New Level of Love and Caring
05/02/2025
April 2025
At Dawn II
04/30/2025
Family Hunt for Our Old House
04/30/2025
Getting Mail, A Glimmer of Altadena Spirit Showing Through
04/30/2025
My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
04/30/2025
Mysteries, Yes
04/30/2025
No Exit by Bob Heinrich
04/30/2025
Pasadena Village
04/30/2025
Sunday Morning Coming Down by Kris Kristofferson
04/30/2025
The Pasadena Civic Center
04/30/2025
Upon Hearing Your Building is up for Sale by Gabriel Cortez
04/30/2025
Art From the Ashes
04/24/2025
Informal Discussion on Current Events
04/23/2025
Gratitude for the Village: Supporting Me Through the Fire
04/14/2025
The Log in Our Eyes
04/13/2025
Evacuation and Soot
04/07/2025
March 2025
About Senior Solutions
03/28/2025
Building a Bridge With Journey House, A Home Base for Former Foster Youth
03/28/2025
Come for the Knitting, Stay for the Conversation... and the Cookies
03/28/2025
Creating Safe and Smart Spaces with Home Technology
03/28/2025
Finding Joy in My Role on The Pasadena Village Board
03/28/2025
I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!
03/28/2025
Managing Anxiety
03/28/2025
Message from Our President: Keeping Pasadena Village Strong Together
03/28/2025
My Favorite Easter Gift
03/28/2025
The Hidden History of Black Women in WWII
03/28/2025
Urinary Tract Infection – Watch Out!
03/28/2025
Volunteer Coordinator and Blade-Runner
03/28/2025
Continuing Commitment to Combating Racism
03/26/2025
Goodbye and Keep Cold by Robert Frost
03/13/2025
What The Living Do by Marie Howe
03/13/2025
Racism is Not Genetic
03/11/2025
Bill Gould, The First
03/07/2025
THIS IS A CHAPTER, NOT MY WHOLE STORY
03/07/2025
Dramatic Flair: Villagers Share their Digital Art
03/03/2025
Empowering Senior LGBTQ+ Caregivers
03/03/2025
A Life Never Anticipated
03/02/2025
Eaton Fire Changes Life
03/02/2025
February 2025
Commemorating Black History Month 2025
02/28/2025
Transportation at the Pasadena Village
02/28/2025
A Look at Proposition 19
02/27/2025
Behind the Scenes: Understanding the Pasadena Village Board and Its Role
02/27/2025
Beyond and Within the Village: The Power of One
02/27/2025
Celebrating Black Voices
02/27/2025
Creatively Supporting Our Village Community
02/27/2025
Decluttering: More Than The Name Implies
02/27/2025
Hidden Gems of Forest Lawn Museum
02/27/2025
LA River Walk
02/27/2025
Message from the President
02/27/2025
Phoenix Rising
02/27/2025
1619 Conversations with West African Art
02/25/2025
The Party Line
02/24/2025
Bluebird by Charles Bukowski
02/17/2025
Dreams by Langston Hughes
02/17/2025
Haiku - Four by Fritzie
02/17/2025
Haikus - Nine by Virginia
02/17/2025
Wind and Fire
02/17/2025
Partnerships Amplify Relief Efforts
02/07/2025
Another Community Giving Back
02/05/2025
Diary of Disaster Response
02/05/2025
Eaton Fire: A Community United in Loss and Recovery
02/05/2025
Healing Powers of Creative Energy
02/05/2025
Living the Mission
02/05/2025
Message from the President: Honoring Black History Month
02/05/2025
Surviving and Thriving: Elder Health Considerations After the Fires
02/05/2025
Treasure Hunting in The Ashes
02/05/2025
Villager's Stories
02/05/2025
A Beginning of Healing
02/03/2025
Hectic Evacuation From Eaton Canyon Fire
02/02/2025
Hurricanes and Fires are Different Monsters
02/02/2025
January 2025
At Dawn by Ed Mervine
01/31/2025
Thank you for Relief Efforts
01/31/2025
Needs as of January 25, 2025
01/24/2025
Eaton Fire Information
01/23/2025
Escape to San Diego
01/19/2025
Finding Courage Amid Tragedy
01/19/2025
Responses of Pasadena Village February 22, 2025
01/18/2025
A Tale of Three Fires
01/14/2025
Idiocracy, A Film Review
By Jim HendrickPosted: 06/03/2025
Idiocracy, a movie review
Movie Review: “Idiocracy” as a Prophetic Satire of Our Times – With a Side of President Camacho Meets Donald Trump
When Mike Judge released Idiocracy in 2006, it was largely dismissed as a goofy dystopian comedy. But almost two decades later, it’s difficult to watch the film without a sense of foreboding. What once seemed a grotesque exaggeration now feels eerily plausible, even prophetic. Its portrayal of anti-intellectualism, environmental collapse, and entertainment-obsessed culture rings more true today with the meteoric rise of social media. And most jarringly, the character of President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho—half-wrestler, half-showman, full-blown caricature—seems like a clear premonition of Donald Trump’s administration.
The premise of Idiocracy is simple but plausible: average man Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) is chosen for a military hibernation experiment. Bureaucracy breaks down and frozen Joe is lost for 500 years. Well, maybe that’s not plausible. Funny as hell though. Joe awakens in a world where intelligence has regressed to the point of societal collapse. The premise hinges on the idea that smart people stopped reproducing while the least intelligent did so prolifically, leading to a genetically dumbed-down populace. In reality social media is doing that to the culture every second of every day. The real punch isn’t in the genetics—it’s in the culture. Language has devolved into grunts and catchphrases. You can see this trend on TikTok. Care for the environment has also collapsed but not from negligence. From stupidity. Crops are watered with a Gatorade-like sports drink called Brawndo (because “it has electrolytes”), and society is ruled by spectacle over reason or science by corporations that only cater to the base desires of humanity, food and sex.
This is where President Camacho comes in. Played by Terry Crews, Camacho is a former porn star and five-time wrestling champion who governs with chest-thumping bluster, machine guns, and showbiz flair. His speeches are raucous rallies filled with fireworks, flexing, and threats. Very similar to a MAGA rally. He offers simplistic, feel-good solutions to complex problems, surrounds himself with sycophants, and turns governance into performance. When the country faces a food crisis, Camacho doesn’t consult scientists—he consults Joe, now the smartest man alive. This is just dead on for seeing Elon Musk enter the MAGA political spotlight.
Watching Camacho in action, it’s impossible not to see parallels with Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump, a reality TV star and branding tycoon, brought a similar circus energy to American politics. Like Camacho, Trump’s rise was fueled by celebrity culture, mass media, and the disdain of traditional expertise. Both figures speak a populist language of emotional appeals and macho bravado, pitting themselves as anti-elitist saviors of the common man. They cultivate adoring fanbases who value loyalty over logic and spectacle over substance.
In Trump’s 2016 campaign and subsequent presidency, rallies often resembled WWE events more than political gatherings. He insulted opponents with childish nicknames, encouraged violence against dissenters, and governed via Twitter with the impulsiveness of a teenager. MAGA has obliterated the norms of decorum, diplomacy, and deliberation in order to bring us entertainment and chaos. In one infamous moment, Trump held up a Sharpie-altered hurricane map to support a false claim he made—an idiotic gesture that wouldn’t be out of place in Idiocracy’s fever dream of a White House.
And just as in Idiocracy, where citizens blindly believe advertising slogans (“Brawndo’s got what plants crave!”), Trump’s supporters often echoed catchphrases divorced from facts—“Build the wall,” “Drain the swamp,” “Stop the steal.” Like Camacho, Trump weaponized distrust in science, the media, and intellectualism. The climate crisis was dismissed as a hoax; pandemic guidance was mocked; experts were replaced with loyalists. We didn’t need 500 years to fall into the trap Idiocracy warned us about—it took less than two decades.
Still, the film’s value isn’t just in its predictive accuracy, but in the sharpness of its cultural critique. It doesn’t hate the “stupid people” as much as it despairs at the systems that reward laziness, commodify ignorance, and replace civic discourse with memes. It’s a takedown of consumer capitalism, infotainment, and the erosion of public education—all forces that paved the way for both Camacho and Trump.
What saves Idiocracy from total nihilism is its protagonist. Joe, an unremarkable man of average intelligence, doesn’t become a hero through brilliance, but by applying basic logic and common decency. That message feels more urgent now than ever: it doesn’t take a genius to make the world better, just someone willing to think critically and act responsibly.
In hindsight, Idiocracy wasn’t a comedy—it was a warning. One that we’ve largely ignored. President Camacho, once an outlandish spoof, now looks like a cautionary mirror. In the Trump era—and perhaps beyond—we are forced to ask: were we watching satire, or prophecy?
Either way, Idiocracy remains required viewing. Not just to laugh, but to recognize how thin the line is between parody and policy—and to wonder whether the future is still salvageable, or if we’ve already arrived.