If I were looking for a poignant pause, I'd compare anything Christopher Hitchens wrote for the Guardian a decade ago to what we're commenting on now, and cons

If I were looking for a poignant pause, I'd compare anything Christopher Hitchens wrote for the Guardian a decade ago to what we're commenting on now, and consider whether this article about the prophecy of Idiocracy might land a bit closer to the writer than to the mark. The reason to be this pointed about it is the cognitive style of articles like these is to seduce readers with sympathy for their smallest and cruelist sentiments. It's as though media appointees imagine themselves as fomenting a better calibre of angry mob or inciting the right kind of superstitious villager. Appealing to Idiocracy as a parable of caution for our times seems a bit rich, especially when the very cause of the idiocy in the movie was that the society in the story had been completely coddled and unchallenged by the very people whose job it was to provoke some kind of thoughtfulness and reflection.