June 13, 2018
COMMONALITY:
Trump's North Korean Propaganda Reveals His Contempt for Democracy (Eric Levitz, 6/13/18, New York)
This week, Trump finally gave his contempt for the "forgotten man and woman" cinematic expression -- in the form of a trailer for a fake, buddy-adventure movie starring himself and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.When this film first began playing for reporters at the summit in Singapore Tuesday, most assumed that it was North Korean propaganda. And it isn't hard to see why: The trailer portrays Kim as a world-historic hero who is on the cusp of leading his nation into a bright and beautiful tomorrow -- one where they will enjoy unprecedented prosperity, and a long-lost harmony with their neighbors in the South.The fact that the White House National Security Council produced this warm portrayal of a homicidal tyrant -- whose regime subjects political prisoners to rape and starvation in a vast network of gulags, imposes forced abortions on women who become pregnant by non-Korean men, and condemns practicing Christians to indefinite imprisonment -- has inspired no small amount of outraged incredulity: It is one thing to dignify a fascist dictator with a face-to-face meeting, for the sake of advancing a vital national security interest; it is another to make a movie that explicitly argues the North Korean people could be well served by that dictator's reign extending indefinitely into the future.
Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2018 2:09 PM
