In Our Brand Is Crisis, Sandra Bullock plays a genius political strategist willing to sell her soul to get her client elected. As this film releases amidst the 2016 presidential debates, we couldn’t help but think about Donald Trump’s own bid for the White House. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
In Our Brand Is Crisis, Oscar winner Sandra Bullock plays “Calamity” Jane Bodine, a seasoned political strategist who’s known for coaxing a dead horse all the way to the finish line. Though she’s in retirement after having a bit of a nervous breakdown, she’s decided to travel to Bolivia to help presidential candidate Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida) win the election despite his dwindling poll numbers. Of course, she’ll need to make a few changes in the way Castillo is doing things.
As politics becomes more about entertainment and marketing, there’s one candidate we couldn’t help but think of while watching this movie: Donald Trump. Many of his political strategies seemed to be straight out of the film. Here are five.
1. Selling fear
The first thing Jane does is declare the political situation in Bolivia a complete crisis. Whether it is or not is up for debate, but like any masterful politician, she knows she can sell fear to the Bolivian electorate.
Trump has made his campaign slogan all about fear by focusing on building a wall at the border of Mexico and declaring he can “make America great again.” Other than the illegal immigrant issues, there are few details on which parts of America aren’t great anymore, just the message that it no longer is great with the implication he can fix it.
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2. A willingness to bend the truth if it makes him look better
In the film, Castillo, a wealthy man like Trump, is an excellent salesman with little regard for the truth behind the ideas he’s selling. Neither Castillo nor Trump has any trouble with bending the truth if it makes him more likable in the eyes of the voters.
3. Disregard for women
Castillo has trouble taking orders from Jane, simply because she’s a woman. Trump has his own issues with women and recently went on a Twitter tirade against Megyn Kelly after he’d felt she made him look bad during a debate. He even called her a “bimbo.”
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4. Posing as a blue collar supporter
Jane tries to persuade the well-dressed Castillo to take off his suit jacket and literally roll up his shirt sleeves. Trump didn’t lose the jacket, but he did cast off his tie and added the baseball cap.
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5. Waffling on issues
Castillo has trouble sticking to his core beliefs in the film and speaks out of both sides of his mouth. Trump’s statement about being “unpredictable” when it comes to carrying a gun gives him a lot of wiggle room on the topic of supporting the right to bear arms.
Our Brand Is Crisis opens in theaters today.
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