Some of the recent speculation on what a McCain, Huckabee, Romney, or Giuliani presidency would look like led me to dig deep into my film memory vault for compelling and cautionary White House scenes. This diary contains a sample of these (as well as dystopias) as opposed to films where Presidents act heroically which are a dime-a-dozen. Please add more, as they may prove useful for future reference when commenting on a candidate's extreme militarism or fundamentalism.
Obviously for this primary season, one of the most appropriate scenes is found in the 1983 film adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone. In the following clip, Johnny Smith who can see the future upon touch, gets a glimpse of up-and-coming politician Greg Stillson's future political career:
In light of some candidates' willingness to push the big red button, Johnny's vision of Stillson's future becomes all the more forboding.
In a similar manner, Lex Luthor's future is revealed upon the touch of a psychic in an early episode of Smallville, whereas he too becomes president and presides over armageddon:
This is later revealed to be nuclear in nature and similar to Stillson's future as well as that of Skynet in the Terminator films:
From the 1981 film, Omen III: The Final Conflict, we have the antichrist in the form of Damien Thorne, a millionaire industrialist and corporate leader who comes very close to becoming president. The following is the trailer from that film:
A more humorous but equally dark vision is elaborated in the 2006 film Idiocracy, where Luke Wilson's character is cryogenically frozen for five centuries, only to awaken into a world that has mentally degenerated:
The flipside of these treatments is the nightmarish Handmaid's Tale, adapted to film in 1990, but really also harkening to the height of fundamentalist power in the US. Here's the original uncensored trailer:
Bonus Clips
Palpatine's declaration of the Galactic Empire in Revenge of the Sith:
Zod takes the White House in Superman II: