How to rig an elec­tion (accord­ing to the movies)

It’s offi­cial: we live in a post-truth world where facts don’t mat­ter and fic­tion runs wild. So with Crunch Time in the 2016 Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion almost upon us, maybe the Clin­ton or Trump cam­paigns will turn to the movies in a last ditch bid for vic­to­ry. In the cur­rent polit­i­cal cli­mate of 2016, you couldn’t make it up, espe­cial­ly if a screen­writer got there first…

As seen in The Manchuri­an Can­di­date (1962)

An exam­ple of moth­er knows hyp­no­sis best, Angela Lans­bury orches­trates a brain­wash­ing oper­a­tion on her son, Lau­rence Har­vey, know­ing he’ll attend polit­i­cal con­ven­tions around crunch time. The trig­ger that acti­vates mind con­trol? A Queen of Dia­monds play­ing card. Of course, it’s dicey ground, espe­cial­ly dur­ing pok­er nights and fam­i­ly view­ings of Now You See Me 2. Nev­er­the­less, it’s a ludi­crous scheme that strikes a chord with para­noid fan­ta­sists and the Hol­ly­wood exec­u­tives who green­lit Jonathan Demme’s 2004 Den­zel ver­sus Meryl remake.

Chances of work­ing in real life: Brexit’s Leave cam­paign­ers hired Paul McKen­na – and as a result, 52 per cent of Britons quit smoking.

As seen in Elec­tion (1999)

The pres­i­den­tial elec­tion is basi­cal­ly a high school pop­u­lar­i­ty con­test on a nation­al scale. So for any­one under the vot­ing age, the stu­dent body pres­i­den­cy is essen­tial­ly a dress rehearsal for the real deal. In Alexan­der Payne’s hyper­ac­tive teen com­e­dy, Reese Witherspoon’s cam­paign tar­gets the youth demo­graph­ic (i.e. fel­low pupils) by toss­ing a rival’s posters into a skip. Then, to com­plete the play­ground pol­i­tics, Matthew Broderick’s Bad Teacher manip­u­lates the tal­ly out of spite. It’s the kind of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry feared by vot­ers who bring pens to the booth.

Like­li­hood of work­ing in real life: The school clean­er in Elec­tion foils the plan on his own, and Amer­i­ca has plen­ty of atten­tive jan­i­tors. So no, although votes do some­times go missing.

As seen in Wag the Dog (1997)

Ah, Hol­ly­wood – archi­tect of dreams, bull­doz­er of polit­i­cal integri­ty. With the Com­man­der in Chief embroiled in a sex scan­dal just weeks before Elec­tion Day, a quick-think­ing spin doc­tor (Robert De Niro) calls upon a film pro­duc­er (Dustin Hoff­man) for an Argo-ish oper­a­tion. Togeth­er, they fab­ri­cate a war with Alba­nia and ulti­mate­ly dis­tract the fick­le pub­lic with stu­dio-cre­at­ed footage. Sex may sell, but not as well as a redemp­tion sto­ry with a Kirsten Dun­st cameo.

Like­li­hood of work­ing in real life: Only if you believe Stan­ley Kubrick faked the moon landing…

As seen in Bul­worth (1998)

With sui­cide next on his agen­da, Sen­a­tor War­ren Beat­ty spends his final days on the lash and is caught on cam­era per­form­ing a com­e­dy rap that goes viral – before social media. Beat­ty not only tells it like it is, he spits it over a beat, and is unwit­ting­ly cat­a­pult­ed up the polls. A time­ly musi­cal ges­ture sim­i­lar­ly does won­ders for Napoleon Dyna­mite before a cru­cial vote; if the plot device rou­tine­ly steals hearts in rom-coms too, could the pres­i­den­cy be decid­ed on Jim­my Fallon’s Lip Sync Battle?

Like­li­hood of work­ing in real life: ​“My name’s Hillary and I’m here to say/​It’s fun to rap in a pres­i­den­tial way.”

As seen in They Live (1988)

Released in the week lead­ing up to the ​’88 Elec­tion, John Carpenter’s anti-Rea­gan cult sci-fi couldn’t pre­vent a Bush vic­to­ry, but its satir­i­cal bite is still sharp today. Upon stum­bling upon a mag­i­cal pair of sun­glass­es, ​“Row­dy” Rod­dy Piper expos­es the world for what it is: a media prison parad­ing cod­ed mes­sages such as ​“CON­FORM” and ​“OBEY”, all over­looked by aliens mas­querad­ing as politi­cians. When vot­ing options involve iden­ti­fy­ing one inter­plan­e­tary mon­ster from anoth­er, per­haps a spoiled bal­lot would be the best outcome.

Like­li­hood of work­ing in real life: No spe­cial glass­es were required to wit­ness Brexit’s poster tactics.

As seen in Man of the Year (2006)

Amer­i­can comics reg­u­lar­ly hit the stand-up cir­cuit to snag a sit­com or launch a movie career. Or at least, the unam­bi­tious ones do. Here, Robin Williams plays top­i­cal talk show host Tom Dobbs – an allu­sion to Jon Stew­art – who friv­o­lous­ly runs for elec­tion as a gag, but sub­se­quent­ly defeats oppo­nents due to nat­ur­al show­man­ship and crowd-pleas­ing quips. Come Elec­tion Day, he’s crowned win­ner despite a com­put­er mal­func­tion. Why the good will? Because he’s Robin Williams. With the four years of media com­mit­ments, Pres­i­dent of USA is the hottest TV gig avail­able – it requires a decent showreel.

Like­li­hood of work­ing in real life: Stephen Colbert’s 2008 mock pres­i­den­tial cam­paign was dis­qual­i­fied for break­ing reg­u­la­tions. If only he’d host­ed The Appren­tice instead.

As seen in The Adjust­ment Bureau (2011)

One of the dumb­est films in recent mem­o­ry, even with­out the hat stuff, George Nolfi’s adap­ta­tion of a Philip K Dick sto­ry imag­ines a shad­owy organ­i­sa­tion fix­at­ed on bring­ing Matt Damon home to the White House. The Adjust­ment Bureau, respon­si­ble for the Roman Empire, claim free will could lead to World War Three, and thus they deem Damon – who’s bliss­ful­ly unaware of his clingy back­ers – to be the safe option. (To be fair, he doesn’t have the demeanour of some­one who’ll declare nuclear war­fare.) He’s not the mes­si­ah; he’s appar­ent­ly a very pres­i­den­tial boy.

Like­li­hood of work­ing in real life: Giv­en the incom­pe­tence of the UK politi­cians put in charge of the post-Brex­it clean-up, it’s hard to imag­ine even the sim­plest con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry being plausible.