Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

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The killer of Kelsey Grammer's sister is killed in a police shoot-out, instead of being arrested and brought to trial. In frustration at justice denied, Grammer abandons acting and studies law, eventually becoming a junior District Attorney. Considering that, in the U.S. at least, the DA's office is often a first step to higher political office... A lightning rod for controversy, his antics were often portrayed by lesser men as mere self-aggrandizement, but they served a much grander purpose. He elevated an ideal, a towering lighthouse with a brilliant guiding flame for those who decided, like himself and his predecessors, to live their lives to the absolute fullest, consequences be damned. The Dragon: Cheney was this for Rumsfeld. After Cheney defects to the resistance, Timothy LaHaye replaces him. Ah, fortune and fame shall follow me...and I shall dwell in the world of the chosen for a few moments of fleeting ecstasy; ere the seven burly lads turn into creditors and hustle me off to debtors' prison at last.

I like this place” he said with a grin “I like to sit up here and look down at the beach and think of all the good things I could do with a Luger.” Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov is, despite his own authoritarian positions, deeply disturbed by the madness of Rumsfeld, especially when he informs Ryzhkov in so many words that he knows the USSR kidnapped Richard Nixon, and that he sees it acceptable for them to execute a former US President if they want to, because it will help Rumsfeld garner domestic political support in the wake of his death. Ryzhkov, who was ignorant of and afterwards opposed to the kidnapping for obvious reasons, sees this as beyond the pale and has Nixon released unharmed. The Soviet Union is steadily adopting OTL China-style reforms and is drawing Western Europe into its orbit with ease given the increasingly psychotic and vindictive Rumsfeld. While it is still an authoritarian regime, it does seem to have a good chance of emerging from the 80s as a freer and more prosperous country than America does.

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off to the right of this typewriter, on the floor between the beds, I can see an 8x10 print of Frank Mankiewicz yelling into a telephone at the Democratic Convention in Miami; But that one will never be used, because the god-damn hound put five big claw-holes in the middle of Frank's chest. The Boohoo," of course, was the same vicious drunkard who had terrorized the Muskie train all the way from Palm Beach, and he was still wearing a press badge that said "hunter S. Thompson - Rolling Stone."

There was no time for scholarly details, and, besides, I have always believed that a man can fairly be judged by the standards and taste of his choices in matters of high-level plagiarism. Events of the past two years have virtually decreed that I shall wrestle with the literary muse for the rest of my days. And so, having tasted the poverty of one end of the scale, I have no choice but to direct my energies toward the acquisition of fame and fortune. Frankly, I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left me.These horrifying digital snapshots of the American dream in action on foreign soil are worse than anything even I could have expected. I have been in this business a long time and I have seen many staggering things, but this one is over the line. Now I am really ashamed to carry an American passport. This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed — for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it. Now. Chekhov's Gun: Briefly mentioned in the timeline and recently brought up in the discussion was a piece of legislation introduced with the intent to criminalise homosexuality. The author has suggested that it might be important in the future.

I had come to regard him as a loner with no real past and a future so vague there was no sense talking about it. Football season is over. No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt. I went to the Democratic Convention as a journalist, and returned a raving beast. For me, that week in Chicago was far worse than the worst bad acid trip I'd even heard rumors about. It permanently altered my brain chemistry…While still under strong military control, most of East Asia has remained stable. Japan has built up a much stronger military presence of their own, while Taiwan has retaken a good portion of mainland China. Both countries have also been working on a joint nuclear program, while Vietnam, due to an American victory, has become a stable and prosperous country. Karmic Death: After Rumsfeld is thrown out of office, the corporations abandon the Republicans and throw their support behind the Christian Values to avoid even the most lenient prosecution for their crimes. When the CV launches their purge, they all end up executed anyway. By 1990, much of the country has been taken over by a theocracy ruled by Douglas Coe. Many cities have been nuked by Coe, and whole states have broken off.

He had done a few good sketches but so far we hadn’t seen that special kind of face that I felt we would need for the lead drawing. It was a face I’d seen a thousand times at every Derby I’d ever been to. I saw it, in my head, as the mask of the whiskey gentry — a pretentious mix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis; the inevitable result of too much inbreeding in a closed and ignorant culture. All political power comes from the barrel of either guns, pussy, or opium pipes, and people seem to like it that way. It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close…

Wikipedia citation

The film adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, while still directed by Michael Radford, is rather different. Instead of the quasi-Stalinist society it was in the book, Oceania is an openly fascist totalitarian corporatocracy, with big brother serving as a symbol of the enforcers. Winston Smith still has his job at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history for the regime. The Arc Words "D4H1R" are also scattered throughout the film, usually associated with the regime. It's easy to decode it was DHR-41: Donald Henry Rumsfeld, the 41st president of the United States. Companion Cube: The Lesser Mao, imagining himself as a new Emperor Qin Shi Huang, surrounds himself with the Terracotta Army statues. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic. Fragging: Quite a few soldiers in the invasion of Cuba decide to shoot their Liberty Battalion officers and defect after the latter execute wounded soldiers as a cost-cutting measure. Some commenters have suggested that the entire saga is meant to be a Deconstruction of the common notion that having stronger third parties would be a palliative to some of America's problems. Here, more third parties end up making those problems even worse.