The Dumbest President in History Is the greatest Leader ever

The case for President Camacho

Idiocracy sells itself as a lowbrow comedy about a world too stupid to survive. It is actually hard science fiction about intelligence, evolution, and corporate rot, and its most underrated joke is its president. Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, a former pro wrestler and porn star who fires a machine gun into the air during the State of the Union, is written to look like the punchline of the whole civilization.

Look at what he does instead of how he sounds. Camacho inherits a dying country and runs it like a leader most modern politicians could never match. He goes hunting for the single smartest person alive, and the moment he finds Joe he hands him real power, resources, and a public platform, rather than fearing the smarter man and burying him. He names every crisis from memory, in public, and puts forward an actual plan. He takes on the largest corporation on Earth to save his people. He sets deadlines, holds his people accountable, and then, when new evidence lands, he is willing to admit he was wrong and reverse course on the spot. When it is all over, he gives every ounce of credit away and hands the presidency to the man who solved the problem.

He does not smear the people who disagree with him; he puts them on camera. He does not fear the people smarter than him; he recruits them. He does not cling to power; he gives it away. Strip off the flag suit and the machine gun and you are left with a portrait of the ideal leader, hiding in plain sight inside a movie everyone was told to laugh at.

The evidence

Episode transcript

All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Popcorn Isn't Real, starring me, Torvald, and my brother, Leif Eric. Hey there. So today, we're going to be talking about Idiocracy. I'm a pretty big fan of Idiocracy. I think it's a great movie. I like it a lot. I love Brondo. I was a huge fan of Brondo when it came out. I was a fan of Brondo before I was a fan of Idiocracy, oddly enough. Yeah, I mean, the Brondo videos were the best thing to come out of Idiocracy. Right. Sadly, I've never tasted Brando. I wanted to, but I couldn't get hold of a pack. But anyway, I don't know if you feel the same about Ediocracy as me, but I like it a lot. I think I probably feel a little differently about it. But you know what I think as I was rewatching it? I thought to myself, this is a clever movie. I don't think that it's necessarily all that funny. a good movie well no it's it's not the sort of movie that i watch and laugh at the jokes i don't

think the jokes are necessarily that funny but i do think that it's clever and it's a very good uh social uh political satire social satire yeah and um i also do think it's actually well written the main character is good for this story i think he has a good arc and for a silly movie i think it has a pretty good story right well what i think is funny about uh idiocracy and i've always kind of thought this is that it's a hard sci-fi movie they're basing it in reality and trying to justify everything that's done and also using science as like sorry using their movie as like a look at science and politics and human intelligence and evolution and corporatism right but it's masquerading as a lowbrow comedy yes like which is really funny because it's like it's an intellectual movie but it's acting like a movie for idiots which is one of the funniest things about it that's part of why i like it because it's very on point for this movie right yeah i think

it's a really good movie i think it's really ahead of its time uh it was released in 2006 um i don't know if you mentioned this but it's written and directed by mike judge king of the hill right yes uh king of the hill and tons of other stuff and beavis and butthead and stuff like that no i mean he's he's prolific the dude has done tons of stuff no he's he's cool he he knows comedy he knows good comedy and i don't know if this movie is good comedy but it certainly is smart and what yeah one interesting thing about this movie is they've got just like copious amounts of product placement like you've got tons of companies and they're all portrayed in like a really less than flattering light yeah like you got carl's jr fud rockers costco h&r block starbucks yeah like i mean all these companies are in the movie with their real names so they they okayed this with the companies did they get money i mean is that how they got funding because a lot of

times that's how you get funding like the secret life of walter mitty was funded almost exclusively by cinnabon and match.com or one of those like dating sites which they like shill hard for in like every single scene of that movie it's a good movie but anyway i mean so the the story for uh the story for idiocracy is i don't think they were getting money like the secret life of walter mitty but i guess the lawyers were talking to mike judge and they were like well it would help like it would help us to push this through if you didn't just pick one company if you you know did this to more than one company so that's why he was like all right instead of just carl's jr They're throwing Fuddruckers, Costco, Starbucks, right? And basically, I think the idea was if we can get them all on board, as long as it's like a blanket deal and you're making fun of all the companies, then everyone's cool with it, right?

All right. But then, apparently on release, like, Fox just buried the movie. Like, it sat finished, shelved for a year. Like, they didn't release it. They just sat on it. Yeah, I realize now when I rewatched it that I had never seen that whole movie, though I had seen parts of it several times because it played on TV. I'd seen like the end and middle of it like two or three times. Yeah, but I'd never even once seen the beginning of that movie. It's interesting because, like I said, they shelved it for a year. They sent out no press kits, nothing. They had no actors doing interviews or anything. Like, no one talked about this movie until they suddenly released it on 1st of September 2006 to only 130 theaters. And none of them were in, like, big markets like San Francisco. No, we don't need this movie premiering just in, like, Hollywood. Nah, right? Like, it was just a minuscule release. It was teeny tiny.

And supposedly, like, this was an executive decision. It was just passed down the chain. Like, we're going to do a small release for this movie. And some journalists have theorized that some of the sponsors were maybe put off and unhappy about the way their products were placed. And, sorry, the way their products were portrayed. And they made some phone calls to the higher-up executives at Fox and, you know, got them to bury it. And then other people believe that the studio is just, like, doing the bare minimum to fulfill their contract obligation with Mike Judge, which required the movie to have a quote-unquote theatrical release before being sold to DVD. So you can't say it didn't have a theatrical release. It was in theaters. Okay. That's a good theory. I mean, the thing is I got no more backing than that, just the movie's pitiful, pitiful release. Well, it's interesting how the movie has managed to find

such a large cult following. Everybody knows the movie Idiotocracy, who is at least, you know, kind of grew up around that time. Like even like our grandpa knows the movie Idiocracy and mentions it sometimes, you know? And I remember it was weird. Like when I first heard of the movie, it must have been like 2006 or 2007. And I first heard of it and I was like, well, that's weird. This must be like an old movie, but it seems new, right? I was like, I've never heard of it being released, so it must be old. But no, you're right. Like people know it. People have heard of it. And, you know, people. Oh, one more thing. It's just to make matters even worse for the movie, even people who wanted to see it might not have been able to because I guess in the theaters it came out in, they didn't list it correctly with Moviefone. Oh, no. Yeah. They had it listed on Moviefone as Untitled Mike Judge Comedy.

Oh, wow. So if people were like, I want to see Idiocracy. Oh, I love Mike Judge. They'd be like, we're not showing Idiocracy, even though they were showing Idiocracy. they'd be like the movies we're showing today are untitled mike judge comedy that's what they called it right like a certain audience of people do definitely know who mike judge is but i don't think he's like a household name you know like no and like i said new mike judge film this was almost certainly an accident or a malicious accident right but it it wasn't supposed to be titled untitled mike judge comedy in like theater listings that that was not supposed to be But anyway, poor movie really, really had a tough time on release. And I'm glad that it has, you know, developed such a wealth of followers, of people who like it and enjoy it. I think it's a good movie, and I think it deserves recognition, at least. So, yeah, what's the story of Idiocracy?

Do you want to walk us through it, or should I walk us through it? Yeah, I mean, I can give a quick one. It's about, I mean, the basic Futurama setup of a guy who's average, who gets frozen and sent forward in time. But due to a mistake, forward a lot further than he intended, along with 500 years into the future. I forget his name. A lot. But his name is Joe. Joe and Rita. That's right. Go forward in time. I remember Rita. I just couldn't remember Joe. So, yeah, Joe and Rita go forward in time to a time where everyone's stupid. And they're, I mean, what's the story after that? They're trying to get back, but not very hard and not very well. Right, because they're all so stupid. And then they end up working for the president and then they save the world. Right. Well, I mean, it's important to note that the reason everyone's stupid, according to this movie, is that smart people are less likely to breed

and dumb people are more likely to breed. So given enough time, the world will be filled with dumb people and no smart people will be left. That's the idea behind the movie. Right. And like you said, Joe and Rita want to get back in time. They hear there's a time machine. They end up working for President Dwayne Alonzo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, who we're going to talk about later. And he finds out that Joe is the smartest person in the world and he tasks him with solving the famine. Yeah, basically he says that they need to stop watering plants with energy drinks and then that works and that's the movie, right? Yeah. It's a simple story, I guess, but maybe it goes a little deeper because I have a theory that Idiocracy, the president in this movie, Dwayne Alonzo Mountain Dew, Herbert Camacho, who I refer to as Camacho from now on, Well, seemingly, you know, an inept narcissistic president of an ignorant society.

My theory is that he was actually a portrayal of the perfect president or leading political figure. And I believe that I have the facts to back this up. So I just want to make a note that this theory about President Camacho, it's all over Reddit. It's been talked up and down and in and out and people have discussed it all over. I didn't come up with it, but I do buy into it and I loved researching it. I think it's a great theory. So I'm going to take you through point by point, just explaining the reasons that I think Camacho is a good leader. Now, first of all, throughout the movie, he is a positive, energetic force of nature, right? Like he's motivated and he knows how to motivate his base and he pushes continually to change things to help the people. He's not just sitting on his butt. He's not just trying to cover his butt, right? Like he's trying to help people and he's trying to motivate them.

He's doing his job, right? Yeah. So President Camacho, he recognizes that society is facing an insurmountable problem. And more importantly, he recognizes that Joe is smarter than him. Instead of suppressing Joe's knowledge and Joe's predictions of troublesome times for the people and stuff, he hires Joe to his cabinet. He gives them responsibilities, resources, a public platform to make any policy changes or announcements necessary. Now, I just want to emphasize that President Camacho, he sought out the most intelligent person in the world and placed him in a position to solve the greatest problem society was facing, the big family, right? Like no one had any food. And furthermore, he set actionable, time-constrained objectives for Joe's research and held him accountable for lack of progress at the end, right? And even more amazingly, in my opinion, after scrapping Joe's project and punishing Joe

due to a complete failure to meet the milestones and also the major negative economic consequences that Joe's project incurred, President Camacho was still willing to reevaluate the situation given further evidence and further results. And he recognized Joe's success in the end and even reinstated him, right? So I think Camacho is a fair guy. So then at the end of the movie, after it was all over, after Camacho had led his nation to success, he willingly and happily seceded power to Joe, even acknowledging him and raising a glass to him on live TV at Joe's inauguration speech. I think a lot of people watch this movie and think Camacho is supposed to represent like a bad president, like he's supposed to represent an idiot in an idiot world. And, you know, in real life, there are, you know, narcissistic and inadequate presidents who may attempt to do things or not presidents, but leaders who may attempt to do things to prolong their reign, like, you know, canceling elections or meddling with elections or, you know, delaying elections or eliminating the right to vote for certain people or eliminating.

mail-in votes yeah okay like there there are politicians who would do anything in their power to stop whoever is coming after them right kamacho didn't do it he's more like uh he's less like a trump more like a president bush who's like maybe not the smartest guy but uh he's at least i mean trying harder than say i trump i wouldn't even say he's like a president bush because i think he's a better leader and makes better decisions than most presidents. Like I said, I think that he is supposed to be the personification of the perfect president. Like he is a good leader and not necessarily smart, but a good leader and able to make the right decisions to help his people, right? Okay. So, I mean, I'll sum it up for you. I think President Camacho is the polar opposite of modern politicians. He didn't smear or reject people who disagreed with them. He listened to them. He gave them visibility. He didn't fear people who are more intelligent than him. Instead,

he sought them out and gave them jobs and resources. He didn't tolerate failure, but he was willing to review and revise his expectations just in the face of new information. I think he was a patriotic, goal-driven, insightful, motivated, people-serving, badass president who did not allow his mental capacity to hamper his ability to lead. I think he made good decisions for the sake of his people consistently. Okay. Well, he definitely is patriotic. I'll agree on that. He's very patriotic. So first of all, Joe in prison, at some point in the movie, he gets arrested, goes to prison. He takes an IQ test and that concludes that he's the smartest person in the world. Somehow, President Camacho had a system in place so that he was notified immediately of Joe's amazing prison IQ test result. Now, I don't think the president is normally notified about random prison IQ tests, no matter how high they are, right? Right. So, I mean, somehow he was

looking for smart people. And this is one of the weird things. I mean, it just touches a little bit on one of the weird things about the world of idiocracy, that it seems to be a world of just like terrible late-stage capitalism and yet it also has a lot of the elements of like rampant terrible late-stage like bureaucracy like socialism yeah it's got both of those kind of two sides of the coin but like combative yeah like they they're they've they've got like some sort of free market system where the the the companies were allowed to essentially take over everything but they also have a police state where everything is monitored and everyone's barcoded and uh anyway it's kind of interesting interesting well and i think that kind of comes from like i mean mike judge he's a good comedy writer like he's solid and i think he knows how to play both sides right like if you're going to make fun of one side you got to make fun of the

other side so he's i think he's giving everyone a turn which good comedians do right no yeah and i do think and i think that it was a good choice because idiocracy can certainly appeal to people on any side of the political spectrum yeah except for i mean like right well like us watching it you know we would say like oh man it's probably probably like those dumb conservatives well they're the ones that's what happened if they ruled the world but like i mean our grandpa has watched this movie and he feels strongly the same way but he's very conservative so clearly he's thinking man those dumb liberals are controlling the world that's how it would end up so yeah it's something here for everyone i think i think it's a very interesting point okay back to the uh back to the plot of the movie so president camacho hears about joe's amazing iq test he immediately brings him to the white house and calls what he says is a summit with the smartest man in the

world he literally walks up to joe takes one look at him and swears him in as the secretary of Interior. I don't know if this shows that he's like thorough at vetting his candidates, but you know, based on what he knew, which is Joe is the smartest man on earth, he immediately gave him the job of Secretary of Interior. So I think that shows that he is proactive and he acts on information which he believes is in the best interest of not himself, but his country, right? I think these are qualities of a good leader. A lot of people, if you look at leadership self-help books and stuff like that, like these books to teach you how to be a good leader, most of them will say any decision is better than no decision. And in this case, Camacho was making what he believed to be the best decision at the time, and he was doing it fast, right? I think that's a good quality, and in this case, it paid off.

Now, I'm not saying that he does everything right all the time. And in this scene, actually, there's evidence of maybe nepotism and stuff in his cabinet. Right. Certainly sexism. Well, yeah, definitely sexism.

Yeah. No, so there's the sexism that you alluded to, but also the secretary of defense. he points out the secretary of education and he says he's kind of stupid but he's camacho's stepbrother still he does a pretty good job eh so i mean like you know if everyone agrees that that guy is stupid maybe he shouldn't be the secretary of education but i guess they also thought he did a good job so maybe maybe he was qualified by their standards i don't know right um but i mean that is one slight strike against him that he's apparently hiring his cousin for a stepbrother stepbrother sorry but wait just your small point about the there's a system in place to identify and report the smartest person in the world to the president i don't know if that necessarily counts as a point in camacho's favor because it really does seem like there are a lot of systems in place in this world that could not have been set up by the current people running it

right like there are a lot of very smart systems in place that uh these people don't even see to know how they work or why they work they just kind of do work so it kind of seems like there maybe at one point were smart people putting some of this weird structure in place but and now everyone's sort of forgotten how but they just continue running kind of like the barcodes themselves uh yeah yeah how they tattoo it on and there's like a system of identifying everyone but it doesn't seem to matter to them right like it's it matters to the system and the system was not made by them right no and i i agree with this and i i think this is actually a really good point and i would still count this as a positive for camacho because he may not have built the system but he understood it and he understood the the importance right the urgency behind it uh he acted right away i would almost compare this to another movie and another theory i'd like to get

into someday which is wally i think that's a very similar situation where the ship has been you know in space for thousands of years and people have evolved to not be able to even walk so like humanity is basically a different species by the time of walley and there's systems on the ship that none of them built and none of them understand but the captain understands the importance and takes action when he realizes what it means that there's a plant i think this is similar to that um and i think most people would agree the captain of the ship in wally he was a good captain right like he he was he was kind of a hero of that movie if if you ask me yeah all right he was a hero of that movie i guess moving on so camacho he calls a press conference with the senators um he acknowledges uh in in his speech quoting him he says shit's bad right now with all the starving bullshit the dust storms we're running out of sandwiches and burrito

coverings is burrito coverings is that referring to what you wrap it in or is it referring to tortillas i think he meant tortillas but i mean this is the future we don't know maybe there's different words for things because yeah a drought wouldn't stop them from having like wrappings no but it might stop them from having tortillas i'm fair i'm fairly certain he meant tortillas but we can't know for sure but this shows that he he understands the problem and is openly addressing it right like he he gets it you know this isn't like a politician who's trying to hide the problem he gets it and he's talking about it and also he says he has a solution at which point one of the senators there's an outburst where the senator says what about your last solution and Camacho has to calm him down with a burst from his machine gun um I think this is also good this shows that Camacho is trying things, right?

Like, this isn't his only solution. I mean, this guy who isn't the smartest person in the world is actively proposing new solutions to this big problem that he doesn't know how to fix, right? Yeah, okay. And then he presents his, what he calls a three-point plan to fix everything. At this point, I have to note that Joe, in the future, his name is registered as not sure. So if I ever say not sure, it's not because I'm not sure, it's because that's his name. So, Camacho's three-point plan is, number one, we got this guy, not sure. Number two, he's got a higher IQ than any man alive. Number three, he's going to fix everything. So, that's his three-point plan. And it may not be the most eloquent or all-encompassing plan, but I have to admit, there are three points in that plan. You know, it's simple, but it's logical. And every point is backed up by actual facts. Okay? No, you're right. That is a good three-point plan as far as the definition of a three-point plan is concerned.

If only our current president would do that. We'd be like, hey, this Anthony Fauci guy, we got him. He's smart. Point three, we're going to do what he says. No, exactly. That's what I'm saying is he doesn't understand this stuff, but he is logical and level-headed enough to come up with a real plan that makes sense. It's not complicated, but it makes sense, and it's backed up by facts. This is a good thing, right? He's a good leader. And also, if he dived into a big, complex three-point plan, he wouldn't be a good leader because his people don't understand that stuff, which is why Joe keeps having problems, right? Whereas Camacho, he knows how to talk to his base. He knows how to motivate them. I think he's doing a good job at it, too. So Joe does some research. At some point in the movie, he presents an idea that they should water the crops with water instead of Brondo. If you listen closely at the movie, Brondo employs 50% of the country's population and owns the FDA and the FCC.

Yes. I mean, Brondo is a force of nature. Like, it is a massively powerful company. And Joe says, hey, let's impose strict regulations on Brondo. Camacho immediately does it. He enacts the regulations against Brando. He forbids them from dumping their product onto crops. And this causes Brando stocks to tank and there's massive layoffs and economic turmoil. So this shows that Camacho is willing to fight a massively powerful corporation with huge pull, like politically, economically, they could probably do anything they want. He was willing to fight them and also the branches of government, namely the FDA and the FCC, to enact regulations to save his people. But I feel like the movie implies that he didn't know that's what he was doing because he's not smart enough to know that's what he was doing, right? Because he's very surprised when, by putting regulations on someone, this company that owns almost everything and employs almost everyone,

they're economy tanks, right? So I don't know that he knew he was going head-to-head with the most powerful people in the world. I think he just kind of just did it because Joe's smart and I'm not. So I don't know. Yeah, no, I mean, is he surprised, though? We don't really get to see Camacho's reaction to this because the narrator launches up and then, what's his name, Joe is pulled into a trial. We don't really get to see Camacho's reaction. We don't know if he's surprised or not. Okay. Okay, so the plants didn't grow right away and everyone was mad because they all lost their jobs. So they take Joe to court. They sentence him to one day of rehabilitation, which just means getting smushed by monster trucks. And we don't know how involved Camacho was in this, but we know that he was sitting in the crowd at rehabilitation enjoying himself. So we can at least say that he supported it. And I will say that he rightfully supported it

because so far, all that had come from Joe's decision was bad things, right? Like he gave it a shot and Joe's decision destroyed the country. So now he's being held accountable. And the way he's being held accountable, you know, is alien to us, but seems to be very normal to them. So this may be a cultural difference. I just I do want to note, though, apparently it would have been possible for Joe to, quote unquote, win rehabilitation and also like probable because they say that they got the only undefeated rehabilitation officer ever in history to come out of retirement to face him, which means every other rehabilitation officer has been killed, I guess, or beaten at least. So at the end of the movie, Rita shows President Camacho evidence of the crops growing. When he sees it, Joe is about to be killed by the rehabilitation officer in the arena. President Camacho leaps from the bleachers into the arena, into the gladiator pit.

He tackles the rehabilitation officer who's about to kill Joe, grabs the microphone and announces, this guy just got his ass a pardon. He's publicly and visibly showing his support of Joe and rewarding Joe's intelligence. He's giving Joe credit here. He's not trying to hoard it or, you know, enrich himself from the situation in any way. Well, sorry, just having to do with credit, it just made me think, should Camacho not have taken some of the blame for Joe's failure rather than just sending Joe to the arena to die? right he did hire this guy and he okayed the plan you know so as the president isn't it kind of his fault yes it's possible but also if you're the president and you hire the most qualified people in the world to find out how to do a job and they tell you 100 certain do it this way it will help the people and it doesn't work is it really your fault like you don't understand this stuff you

hired the most qualified people in the world to figure it out for you because you don't know it right like i mean this is like uh if the the ceo of a company was expected to figure out how to like design a car right like that's not his job he hired he hires the people who who are qualified to do it yeah and it could also be like if a president hired someone who did a bad job The president might take some blame for that, but also he would fire that person. And their version of firing that person is rehabilitation. Is killing him, yeah. Well, and in our world today, if the president has a cabinet that does a bad job, you expect the president to fire them and get a new cabinet. You don't expect the president to necessarily resign, but you do expect him to answer to the voters at the next election, right? I just thought of something. Amacho appoints Joe to be his vice president. Is that something you can even do?

Like in our current... I don't know. Aren't you stuck with your current vice president that you ran with? So here's my knowledge of this. If the president is incapacitated or killed, then he is replaced by the vice president. If the vice president is incapacitated or killed, he or she is replaced by the Speaker of the House and then on down the line. Not the Secretary of Interior. What? No, not the Secretary of Interior. No, I don't know much more than that. And this is just stuff I've heard. But I assume if the vice president is fired for whatever reason, then they would automatically be replaced by the Speaker of the House and they would become the vice president. But I don't know. I have no idea. But I mean, their world's different. I was just wondering. Anyway. Yeah, in their world, this works. But yeah, so they have a party. Camacho makes some presidential decrees. He says, I've decided to make this man the man who solved all our problems.

I have decided to make him my new vice president. Once again, he's giving Joe all the credit. He publicly acknowledges him on TV as this man, the man who solved all our problems. I think most leaders would embellish this a bit. They would say, you know, today's a great day for our country. under my leadership, we have done this, right? Like they wouldn't even necessarily acknowledge the scientist who came up with the solution. Yeah. At this point, we find out that there are many other problems. They've got garbage avalanches, a bad economy, nuclear reactor meltdowns or leaks in Florida. And maybe Georgia, or maybe Georgia is in Florida. Right. I'm not sure. There may be two nuclear reactor leaks. but anyway uh they want to put toilet water on all of it possibly not a bad idea probably better than doing nothing i don't know but uh it's it's good that they have joe i don't think joe is really equipped to solve all those problems though but he must have he got elected president

he at least tried but anyway i think all of this shows that uh camacho he may not be the smartest guy but he is a good leader i mean i agree with you i do think he's for that specific world he was a very good leader and among all the less than smart people in that world he was certainly smarter than some and able to use joe to save the day so i agree with you all right so now i can get into my second theory which is i want to discuss camacho's political leanings now i'm gonna i'm going to preface this by saying that all of my interpretations are relative to the world that Camacho is in, to whatever future world that he is in, which is not our world. Okay. Okay. I believe that Camacho is a Democrat. I believe that he is at least a liberal president and is a Democrat. Camacho is an intellectual president. You said he's one of the smarter people in the movie. I would argue that President Camacho is the smartest person that Joe meets in the entire movie.

Yeah. No, I mean, there's no arguing with that. Absolutely. So Camacho, you know, he may look kind of stupid to us, but he is undoubtedly an intellectual of his time. Now, I didn't notice this ever before, but while watching it this time, I noticed that Joe spends the entire movie among the upper crust and most educated and top rung of society. Joe is exclusively in big cities, Washington, D.C., the White House. He's constantly interacting with just the best of the best that society has to offer. He speaks with doctors, lawyers, judges, White House cabinet members, scientists, right? Like, when's the last time you talked to any of those people in a social environment? All the people that he speaks with, like, they're the top of the top. Just because they don't look like it to us doesn't mean they aren't from that time, right? And they all think he's a hoity-toity-pompous, you know, douchebag weirdo.

He interacts with just a few people who are probably maybe in the lower rung of intelligence. He interacts with a policeman. All the policeman does is he puts Joe in the car. And then when Joe talks to him, he says, what? Turns back and pepper sprays him. And then does that for the rest of the trip. Even though Joe's not talking anymore, he just keeps saying, what? and pepper spraying him which i thought was a pretty good commentary on what police do but no i mean the policeman i think you could count as someone who is is not necessarily highly educated and this shows that this policeman was a barely functional person right like he couldn't carry on a conversation at least from what we saw or another person we see in the movie who is not upper class but maybe rich is the guy who wants to buy rita's services yeah he is you know so dumb that he doesn't understand that the act of waiting for sex is not a pleasurable experience

and so rita's able to charge him for several days of her services while not providing any the people in this movie who are not high positioned or high ranking people are very very inept and can't even manage right whereas joe's best friend frito he's a lawyer right and not only that he went to costco right like he was an educated lawyer who got his degree at costco and only because his dad had connections and he's saying this because he knows it's a big deal right Like, he has the wherewithal to actually go and get an education, but also to tote it, right? Like, to tell people about it. Like, I think Frito is a very smart man in this world, from what we see. And Camacho makes Frito look like an idiot. And most people make Frito look like an idiot. Joe can barely talk to Frito, he's so stupid. But Camacho, he holds meaningful conversations and gets stuff done. What does Joe appoint Frito to be when Joe is president?

is you point him to be vice president why would he do that he's one of the smartest people joe knows i mean yeah no fair enough so yeah knowing just how stupid everybody is in this universe look at them and then look at camacho he's an intellectual of his time he makes three point plans to stop the famine he backs them up with actual evidence no one else in this movie ever like gives a reason for anything besides Frito saying, I like sex and I like money, right? Like Camacho is not appealing to the masses or the rural yokels. He's a thinking man's president. In researching this, I found some extra material where President Camacho, he actually appeared in five shorts back in 2012, as well as a question and answer session, a live Q&A session. Wait, in 2012? Yes. So six years after the movie released. Yes. And these shorts and the Q&A session, I guess, were written by Mike Judge. Okay. And Terry Crews was President Camacho in them.

So these are canon. He is a great actor. I love Terry Crews. Yeah. But these are completely canon. And just to give you some background, supposedly, so this is in our time. Like this is President Camacho in 2012. He traveled back in time when in a cage match with the Grand Poobah of Europe, whoever that is, President Camacho threw a punch that was so fast that he busted through the space-time continuum on, as he quoted it, some Einstein shit and ended up in 2012 and decided to engage in politics. Okay, wow. So in that, during the Q&A session, someone asked him what his favorite weapon is. And he says, the thing I use to battle my enemies is the mind. I don't let them play games with the mind. You can't break me down. And I thought it was really interesting that this guy, this big buff, you know, former wrestler, former porn star, when asked what his favorite weapon is, this guy who's constantly shooting his machine gun in the air, he says his favorite weapon is his mind.

And generally, a president who attempts to appeal to intellectuals rather than, you know, uneducated people, those tend to be Democrats. Another point here is that Camacho is for big government and corporate regulations, which is very Democrat and very non-Republican. Do you have any theories on his stance on, like, fossil fuels? I believe that Camacho is a green president. He at least is environmentally conscious because in one of these shorts, when he's asked about jobs, the camera zooms out to show that he has four guys carrying the throne he's sitting in. And he says that he has them there to create four jobs and also because it's good for the environment. All right. All right. Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, he's toting his environmentalism. just thought it was interesting to note while i was watching the movie that even in a world where trash is is overtaking trash avalanches are commonplace occurrences um and trash just seems

to be overtaking the world uh their cars are apparently all electric oh yeah i didn't notice i i think i might i might be i'm wrong but i think when frito's car breaks down and won't work i swear joe says the battery's dead which would imply that it because i mean it was going i don't know maybe maybe maybe they're not electric but they're small they look electric yeah i don't know they're small they look electric no um you know you're right you're i mean frito says that they turn off the power to his car oh right right yeah that's exactly and you couldn't and you couldn't really do that well maybe you could do that with a with a gas you know if the motor was connected to a computer but if it's not then you couldn't do it so yeah that's that's what it was that was that he says they turn off the power to my car and i assumed that meant it was electric although when they shoot shoot it with tons of machine guns it does

not to not to argue against my own point but that car exploded pretty big implying it was full of gasoline or something flammable but um all right so i agree the the vehicles in that movie did look like electric vehicles they were very small yeah um small compact not not that electric vehicles have to be small but right you know even if they were gas powered they might get better mileage being small yeah anyway camacho wants the u.s out of the middle east um which is a very democratic stance right uh when discussing the war in the middle east he says who cares about the middle east he says he cares about what's happening here in america and then he says he wants to end the war in the Middle East, bring our troops home to overthrow Mexico and Canada, and then Alaska, which may imply that in the future, Alaska is no longer part of the US, or that he doesn't know that it's part of the US. Anyway, I don't know if overthrowing Mexico and Canada are

necessarily democratic, but definitely getting the US out of the Middle East tends to be a more democratic stance now camacho and this i think is very big camacho he proposed a universal basic income which is very not republican yeah okay so uh in his uh video that he made about the economy he says uh why do politicians always talk about jobs nobody wants jobs people don't need jobs people need money he says camacho is gonna give every single american one million dollars this is a ubi that's what it's a this is universal basic basic income yeah that's what he's describing well i mean and and uh from the world of idiocracy a million dollars is very basic income like it's almost nothing for them right so he says there ain't gonna be no more one percenters everyone's gonna be million percenters and then everybody gonna be rich and nobody gonna have any more problems and you ain't gotta worry about no damn health care or nothing so he wants universal basic

income and health care for everyone yeah this is very very democratic right but it raises the question then what are they satirizing here i don't know are they making fun of democrats and universal basic i think so oddly enough another thing that camacho wants to do camacho wants to tax the rich he had a video on taxes and he says he wants to get rid of income tax and replace it with an outgo tax and outgo tax means that every time you take a dump he's taxing it so but his reasoning behind this was it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor young or old smart or dumb the government is taxing your excrement he he believes that this will level the playing field as the rich can no longer evade taxes right it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor everybody craps so everyone's gonna pay um and then the so he he went over that in a special outgo tax video then later in the live q a he made what i thought was a brilliant reference to

it because this is live and unscripted um this is just terry cruz answering questions on twitter someone asked him something and then he gave I think more insight into what he thought of his outgo tax he started talking about he was actually talking about like meal sizes and he was saying he wants lots of food he eats a lot but then he said I go to the movies I order 17 cups of soda I drink them down and then I pay my taxes and I thought that was a really good callback because he hadn't even talking about his alcohol tax he just brought that in out of nowhere but i mean you could take from this that he thinks you know rich people are gonna eat more and drink more and therefore will pay more taxes right like they can't escape the taxes anyway so yeah camacho wants he wants to tax the rich but also uh in the live q a he reveals that he has no parents he was orphaned at birth. A foster kid from the day he was born, wore to the state for 18 years, which he says,

America made me. He was in juvie at some point. He didn't really expand on that, but he's an offender, right? He basically worked his way from the bottom to the top, as he put it, which I think makes him, you know, being such a minority, I think this makes him not a very Republican candidate right he's not like uh you know bush who basically is just doing the same thing as his dad or trump right he's not living off of any anyone's money right anyway i think that's about all i have another thing uh someone asked him about ugly women and he said there ain't no such thing as an ugly woman uh he says i left porn because i was being objectified i think that's interesting Like he has some, he believes in, if not women's rights, he believes in people's rights and, you know, treating people like people. And then he says every woman is beautiful. And then he says he has 18 wives and 47 kids, which I don't know how to interpret because I'm not from his time period.

So, yeah, I think I've put forth ample evidence to show that Camacho, at least in his own universe, is a Democrat. Yeah, I agree with you. now we know he's pro-gun just to give some counterpoints to my own argument we know he's pro-guns but i i kind of let that slide just because it seems to be a very pro-gun world he lives in but i don't know i wonder about that it seemed like only government people had guns was there yeah you're right no i don't remember anyone else ever having a gun or non-politician who had a gun so i mean it definitely seems like they're heavily regulated yeah i think so i think it's a military state where people are not allowed to buy guns, but the government certainly is allowed to have them. Well, there you go. He's the Democrat. All right. Now I want to just mention, so these shorts and this Q&A, they came out in 2012. And I kind of think he was parodying Obama, sort of. Right. Because, you know, Obama was president at the time. I think he was kind

like i don't know making making light of obama's stances and showing like an extremist version of them but i'm not sure because like his camacho's stances don't map one-to-one with obama's so i don't really know um but anyway i mean his his stances are definitely more democratic than republicans so he must have been trying to be democratic i don't know well something to note about this is almost all of those videos are you can't get them anymore they're all down they were on the funny or die um they're basically inaccessible now they took down most of them i think there's uh the middle east one is still up and then one other one the the elections one was still up where uh where he talks about i i kind of took this to mean that he's not like conservative minded because he he says what are these other politicians talking about i don't want to talk about lowering taxes. I want to talk about more violence on TV. That was what he wanted was more

violence on TV. So 2012, this was Obama versus Romney, right? Yeah. And he's definitely not parodying Romney. He's not Romney. But I think it's still insane that Romney was ever even like, it's just crazy that he was an actual presidential candidate. And that they were actually like, We could win with this? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a pretty interesting time back in 2012, and it's a pretty interesting time now. So they made these shorts back in 2012. Mike Judge and Terry Crews and I think Ethan Coen, Ethan Coen, the other writer, they got together and they were going to make some more shorts for, I think, the 2016 election, which would have been cool. That would have been an even better election to parody. And they were all super pumped about it. And Terry Crews was excited about it. The 2012 election was nothing. It was completely forgettable. Right. It was the most, you know, bland election.

But anyway, so they were all pumped about it. And Ethan Cohen was apparently so pumped that he started like, you know, trumpeting around town that he is going to write these anti-Trump shorts. And a lot of executives got really unhappy about that and kind of shut them down. And also at that point, Mike Judge and Terry Crews kind of soured on the idea because Terry Crews gave an interview about it. And he was like, look, I don't want to make fun of or make anti anything. I want to make fun of everything. Right. And I think that kind of shows in the idiocracy humor, like we already talked about how everyone gets a turn. And he was like, that's just such a bad way to put it that we're making anti-anybody shorts. He's like, of course we're going to get shut down. So it's probable that they were just making fun of presidential candidates and elections in general. Yes, I think that's probably it in the first one.

But also, I think the first ones could be interpreted as making fun of Obama. And maybe that's why they didn't get canceled. Because the ones that were going to make fun of a Republican got canceled for whatever reason. but anyway i have i have one more thing i want to talk about this doesn't really fit into any of my theories i just it's like my favorite part of the movie throughout the movie rita keeps saying she's like she keeps referencing her pimp upgrade she keeps saying he's going to get her like at the beginning of the movie when they wake up she says oh man it's been 500 years upgrade gonna kill me he gets mad when i'm a day late with his money and then joe tells her that upgrade can't be here it's 500 years in the future and she says upgrade don't care where the time machine is now then last week he will find a way to come get his money so she's very confident in upgrades abilities to come

and get her later in the movie she says uh she's talking to joe and it's kind of like a more subdued moment between them and she says all i know is i better find upgrade before he finds me and joe says listen to me upgrade cannot find you okay it's impossible and she says oh yeah and he says yeah yeah later a rock is thrown through their window and she says oh shit it's upgrade right like she immediately thinks it's him and then at the very end of the movie after it's an after credit scene and i mean after credits like it's not just after like the beginning credits like they do nowadays it's at the very end before the film cuts out um they cut to a pod sitting in the garbage which slowly opens and upgrade is inside he gets up shakes off his clothes grabs his hat and says i'm gonna find this hoe then walks away with music blasting which is logically foreshadowed in the it is because the guy good friends with the guy

who was running the program yes so it makes sense that he might just love it it's so consistent Like, the first time I saw the movie, I was not sure about it. I kind of felt like you. Or I was like, this movie's not that funny, but it is clever. Then that scene happened after the credits. I was like, oh my gosh, this is like my favorite movie. I love it. For them to carry that upgrade thing from the start to the finish and then have it pay off after the credits beginning to end of the movie. This is about upgrade. Yeah. anyway i love that that's my favorite part of the movie i love it all right well all right i think we're ready to wrap this up yeah yeah hey um okay we'll do both theories what do you think of the camacho is portrayed as the perfect leader theory i think that you have good evidence to uh support it and i think i agree with you i don't necessarily think that's what they were

intending when they wrote it but i think it's i think it's a good maybe it was i just don't know but i as far as the other one goes clear as day all right yeah the other theory what do you think of the uh camacho is a democrat theory yeah well i mean i definitely agree with you on that like i think that is definitely what he's leaning toward i don't know if they actually have those political right i wish i could answer that parties in that time period but i definitely think that you are correct that that's that's what he's more aligned with all right well there we go that's two thumbs up you heard it here no yeah uh-huh sure all right cool well thank you so much for tuning into the popcorn isn't real we had a lot of fun discussing this awesome movie and we will see you next time this has been leif eric and torbalt and we'll see you later see ya thank you so much for listening. Opening music for this episode was provided by Christine. If you want to see

how our theory holds up, we provide links in the episode description where you can enjoy the media we discuss. And if you like our podcast, don't forget to rate, review, subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts. And remember, the popcorn isn't real.