I have mentioned my intense dislike for the sitting President of the United States before. Watching the antics of this administration has seriously deepened my dislike of trump. I have struggled to find a way to accurately describe the chaos and destruction that is daily presented by this administration.
One description that I have liked until now came from Kate Brannen. Writing for Foreign Policy magazine, she described the trump administration as “Game of Thrones for morons.” Though I like this description, I think it implies far too much credit to the administration. Associating this administration with Game of Thrones implies that there is far more thought and strategy going on than I think is possible for trump and his cronies.
Then, recently, I found out about The Institute of Gremlins 2 Studies. It started here with an article on the AV Club. That article has a link to this interview at MEL magazine. I devoured each article, as well as the links associated with the articles, and then did some independent research on the gremlins of the Gremlins’ movie series.
I have since spent some time reading the tweets on @G2Institute. What I found seems like a perfect description of what is happening in modern politics. It describes not only the stupidity and chaos coming out of the White House, but also the perfidy and collusion of the Republican congress. Taken a step further, it could also describe the Democratic party’s current status as bewildered bystander.
The Institute of Gremlins 2 Studies has a pinned tweet describing a process called Hyper-Gremlinization. This is defined as “a future where the film is increasingly inseparable from reality.” I easily found evidence of this. The interview in MEL magazine suggests that character Daniel Clamp, the real estate developer who’s building the gremlins wreak havoc in, is at least partially based on trump. They point to this Wired magazine article to underscore the point.
This would seem to imply that trump himself is not a gremlin, but an enabler of their antics; this does seem somewhat apt. “The Gremlins go beyond the acceptable transgressions: They very much threaten the system represented by Clamp Center.” In an eerie analog to the President, it seems that while Clamp is ostensibly in charge of the mess that is his building, it is also hopelessly out of his control.
The Villains Wiki page on Gremlins describes them as “ monsters … notable for being mischievous and chaotic, obsessed with destruction and cruel practical jokes.” The only part of this that does not make obvious sense in describing the trump administration is the part about being obsessed with cruel practical jokes; though we have no way of knowing or proving that administration members are joking, there is no evidence that precludes this.
It is my opinion the Hyper-Gremlinization is the best description of the current state of politics in the United States today. A figurehead president hopelessly out of his depth, overseeing a set of actors within the administration and the Republican Congress who are seemingly intent on the destruction of everything within their grasp for their own amusement. Meanwhile, the Democratic Congress stands by as a powerless observer.
Perhaps not the best possible description, but it is the best I have at the moment. Further inquiry will prove it apt, or not. However, I think the theory of Hyper-Gremlinization, in stating that reality will increasingly conform to the actics of the gremlins in the movie, is exemplified by the trump administration.
The Conflict Authority 