Donald Trump

Not even close in your Trump comparison. Trump was born with a golden spoon in his mouth. Lonesome was not, at least from what we learned about him in the film. Trump also IS what he appears to be while Rhodes pretended to be nice and polite in public while letting his true feelings out to only a few who knew him. Go ahead and hate the man but he is OUR President. But the rags to riches story isn't comparable since Trump was always wealthy via his family then himself.

Maybe Hillary could have used a Lonesome Rhodes media expert to advise her.

As a rule when you mix genres in a movie you're in trouble. --William Goldman

The similarities between Lonesome Rhodes and Donald Trump are uncanny. It's like this movie predicted the future.

If life continues to imitate art, I can't wait for the big reveal, when Trump's "poorly educated" supporters learn once and for all, through his own words, that he actually despises them and been taking advantage of them all along in his narcissistic rise to power.

Or maybe that moment has already happened, with the leak of the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged of being a sexual predator. ("And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.") Yet the American public still voted him into office a month later. As stated Mel Miller's speech at the end of the movie, the American public has such short memories.

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Re-watching it tonight...double billed with Manchurian Candidate (original ver)

If they had I fear they would have proven the American public, at least those who vote, proved itself at least as stupid as Lonesome Rhodes said they were. At least in the movie, ordinary people knew pretty quickly when he showed his true colors that they were being had! The truth is in real life a looney contingent with a misplaced sense of loyalty is still cheering this train wreck on. You couldn't write a movie showing the actual situation as the public would not accept being shown as stupid as it actually is! Or maybe it was all the Russians...yeah...the Russians.

Incidentally that little anti-Social Security Daniel Boone rant the presidential candidate gave would give him good standing in the Republican party today!

(At least SOME members of the public were awake and alert as evidenced by works of dystopian literature decades old suddenly hitting the bestseller charts!)

The end is the same! A final act that turns off the masses, and is banned from media.

Pretty cool.

A better comparison would be Obama. His image was cultivated perfectly, the truth be omitted. Trump's was mercilessly attacked. In fact, the left made up stories about him. They still claim he worked with Russia. This, after Feinstein had a driver who was a Chinese National for decades and the idiot Swalwell was boinking a Chinese spy.