One truly mind-numbing aspect of election season is the amount of excitement people are trying to generate over members of the elite that have not behaved beyond anyone’s expectations. From lackluster debates that inspire few people to campaign commercials that reflect campaign contributions, there has been little to encourage the populace towards engagement. Many people are jaded with the side effects of a pandemic, during which no authentic leadership has been demonstrated–other than corrupt and opportunistic behavior designed to punish the many in favor of the few. As a result, “Agents of Chaos” neither shocks anyone, nor does it build confidence that any of the elite have learned from this experience.
The real problem with this documentary is that its producers believed people could still be shocked by misbehavior from a malignant narcissist who has been using his position to make money and garner attention. However, no one is genuinely shocked to learn that, because the U.S. president generously flattered Vladmir Putin, Putin returned the admiration through the organization of an army of misinformation. This army was composed of younger, unemployed people who were familiar with social media platforms, willing to spread whatever fiction helped them exist in a world that had already mocked them for not being older with more resources. Social media proliferation meant that there was only a matter of time before such platforms could be used to influence policy that harmed the countries of their creators.
Moreover, the entire nightmare of the last nine months has been a barrage of incompetent and entitled older men scraping for more resources from people who have none. Even though unemployment is at an all-time high, retailers and real estate moguls are still behaving as if everyone just needs to send out one more resume before being able to participate in a boom economy. Local governments are still offering incentives are companies to bring jobs to people who may not even be able to access them, and the men in this series are more of a reminder of how out-of-touch the federal government is to its citizenry. None of this behavior is surprising to abandoned people, and this series does very little than serve as a possible voting add for the undecided.
Corruption is obvious on every level in this country, and yet filmmakers, politicians and economists want the people to believe that different corrupt people will change everything for the better. Personally, the first half of the series was sufficient to understand that help is not coming; the second half was less interesting because the news has already broken on the scandals that were supposed to be revealed. At some point, creators with financial resources will be forced to evolve, because “Look at this!” will not engage a traumatized nation.