Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching a bunch of movies on American politics: Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush biopic W. (2008); a fictional account of a Democratic primary that gets nasty, The Ides of March (2011); a couple of movies looking at historical political scandals: Chappaquiddick (2017) and The Front Runner (2018); and finally a biopic of Dick Cheney, Vice (2018)

What struck me watching these movies, as I think it would anyone, is how their catalogues of scandal, crime, and cynicism pale beside any ordinary week’s worth of news out of the Trump White House. What sorts of movies are we going to see made about the current administration? I think we’re past the point of parody now.