i can think of a few stories…
I’m throwing Starship Troopers in the ring
Handmaidens tale comes close tho
Idiocracy?
Not even!!! Nobody ever imagined such a horrible scenario
The last, uhh, 24 years keep reminding me of this line by Yeats:
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
Transmetropolitan nails this.
Unfortunately for us as a civilization, the series has aged quite well.
My God, how I miss Warren Ellis.
THIS. Where is the Transmetropolitan streaming series? The time has never been more right.
Neither the Beast nor the Smiler are ignorant, conspiracy theorists, or foreign assets though (grifters and sex criminals, most definitely, I’ll give you that, especially the Smiler, but most of the City’s population seems to fit in those categories too, so in that sense they do represent their electorate).
They’re both quite competent and intelligent psychopaths.
Now, if we’re talking about the Republican Party Reservation and its associated TV show, or the vat-grown VP…
Tom Clancy may yet surprise you
I feel like altered carbon might be on the right path, possibly blade runner as well.
Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Gotta protect those bodily fluids boiz!
Season 4 of Lexx had all that and aliens.
Sure, some did. But in those novels the same individuals were actually pretty smart.
That’s the difference.
There’s a big smart evil guy somewhere puppeting all these morons, right? Please god tell me there’s one smart guy doing all of this. It can’t be idiots the entire chain of command.
Alt: duck soup movie poster, in which a grifter con man fails upward to leading a country, makes a mockery of justice, appoints idiots spying for a foreign government, and ends up in a losing war and destruction.
And it came out in 1933.
Something about history rhyming and all that.
So we’re a decade early. WWIII 2029?
And some song lyrics from the first music number:
The last man nearly ruined this place,
He didn’t know what to do with it
If you think this country’s bad enough now,
Just wait till I get through with it. /
The country’s taxes must be fixed,
And I know what to do with it.
If you think you’re paying too much now,
Just wait till I get through with it. /
I will not stand for anything
That’s crooked or unfair.
I’m strictly on the up and up,
So everyone beware. /
If anyone’s caught taking graft
And I don’t get my share,
We stand ‘em up against the wall…
And pop goes the weasel!
I have to watch it again, along with some of the others like coconauts and day at the races
Morons from Outer Space is a classic you should include
The amount of sexual predators Epstein’s closest friend have nominated to position of powers is incredible,
So many villains in fiction are depicted as intelligent, phew, did we ever get that one wrong
It may seem like a meme, but Idiocracy did actually nail it. Dumb and aggressive with no attention span.
Idiocracy was less mean-spirited than reality, though. Sure, people were assholes, but they weren’t trying to eradicate trans people or immigrants.
Go away, baitin
Honestly, its always been anti-intellectualism. Sure not all smart people are good people, but in general empathy is a sign of intelligence, while malice and stupidity go hand in hand.
Edit: There’s also the fact that the smart tropey villains also often happen to be wealthy, and as we all know being wealthy means someone is smart/s
If they were intelligent, we wouldn’t even figure out they’re villains
Dr Evil is pretty dumb, he only surrounded himself with intelligent people. Still not an equivalent since DT is hiring idiots.
Fun fact: DT can mean alcohol withdrawal and the symptoms resemble Trump. “Severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms such as shaking, confusion, and hallucinations.”
Dr Evil is pretty dumb, he only surrounded himself with intelligent people
TFW you realize Dr. Evil is wiser than our President Elect.
Dr. Evil is a parody of a mastermind Bond villain, which is why he was dumb as a subversion of the trope.
But you also could say Bond villains were also dumb. They always seemed to make stupid mistakes and allow James to foil them, long monologues that gave him a chance to think.
