This week, The Hollywood Reporter featured a lengthy paean to the new anti-Bush film Vice. This particular film is dedicated to the apparent evil of former Vice President Dick Cheney, the Left’s all-purpose nefarious bugaboo during the Bush years. The film isn’t unique: it follows W, starring Josh Brolin, a box office failure; Truth, another box office failure starring Robert Redford about Dan Rather’s attempt to take down George W. Bush with a fake letter about his military service; and You’re Welcome, America, starring Will Ferrell, which aired on HBO. None of these films raked in the cash. But that’s not stopping Adam McKay, creator of HBO’s Succession, from taking on a president who left office a decade ago.
What’s driving McKay? The need to live out his anger against Bush. McKay recalls attending the victory party for John Kerry — who, needless to say, did not win. “Everyone you could imagine was there,” McKay describes, including Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, and Ferrell. “Once again, we’re like, ‘Oh, they’re going to lose.’ There’s no way you’d re-elect these guys after the disaster we just had. I remember Frank Rich was on the phone, and he’s like, ‘It’s over.’ And within two minutes, the entire party had cleared out.”
McKay turned away from political projects until The Big Short. But now he’s back, and he’s betting a $60 million budget that Americans are desperate to see Christian Bale put on 45 pounds and play Cheney as a Machiavellian devil hell-bent on sending American troops into battle for no good reason. The cast is massive, and includes Sam Rockwell as W., Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld, and Tyler Perry as Colin Powell. According to McKay, Cheney was far more powerful than W.
This, of course, is untrue. But the punch line is this one: “I would choose Trump over Bush and Cheney.” Why? Because, according to McKay, “Donald Trump has no belief system. So I would take the hyenas, the random wild animals running through the White House over Cheney any day of the week.”
This is how you got Trump.