Last month, the current US President Joe Biden withdrew from the re-election campaign and nominated Vice President Kamala Harris to compete with former President Donald Trump. If she is successfully elected, she will become the first female president in US history. The seemingly unexpected political changes were actually "spoiled" in an American TV series that ended many years ago. That was the comedy Veep starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (left) and Kamala Harris
Veep features the fictional U.S. Vice President Selina Meyer. The show ended its seventh season in 2019. Unexpectedly, five years later, on July 22, 2024, the day after Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, Veep's first season saw a 353% increase in viewership on the streaming platform Max.
In the first season of the show, Maryland U.S. Senator Selina Meyer ran for president but lost the party nomination to Stuart Hughes. She then joined Hughes' campaign and was elected vice president. However, in the second season, President Hughes suddenly resigned, leaving Meyer as acting president and having to run for re-election.
"Vice President" poster
The fictional comedy shines into reality, making "Veep" quickly become a hot keyword on American social media. Various memes have been widely circulated, making the outside world curious about how the show's creator, Armando Iannucci, came up with such an idea many years in advance?
Recently, the Scottish-born Hollywood ace screenwriter accepted an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. He not only introduced many inspirations for the screenwriting of "Vice", but also put it into practice and made many suggestions to Vice President Kamala Harris. In his opinion, the competition in the upcoming US presidential election in November will be "very, very fierce, and the situation will not be clear until the final result is announced. No one will be ahead by a large margin, and various different opinions will continue until the last moment."
Although Iannucci said he could not predict what the final result would be, his advice to the Democratic camp was: "Don't keep saying things like 'Trump is crazy', because everyone has known this for a long time, and everyone has their own opinions. So I suggest starting with policies and emphasizing that the policies that the Trump team is talking about are the really crazy things. Because not all voters are clearly aware of this. Trump claims to represent the interests of the American working class, but many of the policies he proposes are aimed at raising prices in the trade war, redistributing taxes, making the rich richer in the United States, and giving big companies, consortiums and technology giants more power and influence."
Overall, Armando Iannucci is pessimistic about current American politics, and even doubts whether he would have the idea of creating "Vice" if he had seen what is happening today. "The premise of the story of this series is that some politicians make some mistakes, and then they are afraid of being discovered, so they try their best to cover it up, and sometimes they end up making things worse. But now, more than a decade later, when Trump can openly say something like this - 'I can shoot someone in the face on Fifth Avenue, and people will still vote for me', to be honest, there are no rules anymore." In early 2016, Trump boasted at a campaign rally. His original words at the time were: "I can stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and I won't lose my voters."
Therefore, in Armando Iannucci's view, the political language used by Trump has moved away from the traditional structure based on established political rules on which the story of "Vice" is based. "Politicians in the past were worried about being found out after making mistakes. But for Trump, he will say, 'Oh, don't worry about me saying this, because the next day I will change my words and say that I was joking and you took it too seriously.'"
Finally, Iannucci was relatively calm about the various Veep memes that were popular on social media. In his opinion, there is a danger here. "That is the danger of equating the presidential campaign with a comparison of who has the better social media campaign, which is actually not what the average voter is really thinking about right now. Everything still comes down to practical issues such as job opportunities, economic policies, and national security. The popularity on social media may further reinforce the existing ideas of some voters, but I don't think it can completely change people's original ideas, and I don't think it alone can drive people to the polls. I think there is a dangerous idea now, that is, to think that if something is popular on social media, everyone will see it. This is not the case. In the end, you will find that only a very small number of voters will really take it seriously."
