Funny that this came up, as I was watching an episode of TRANSFORMERS with the boys, where this politician uses doctored media to fan anti-Autobot flames in the populace (aided by Megatron, naturally), propagandizing people into thinking that the Autobots are the bad guys, which gets them booted off the planet, leaving it for the Decepticons. Anyway, a fairly straightforward demagogue narrative that communicates that this is a bad thing.
But watching it today, you can't help but think that this is what we have now -- the talk radio and Fox News circuits create a reactionary echo chamber that crafts its own reality, affecting how people react to the world around them in various invidious ways. It wasn't a reflection of the prescience of the kiddie show, so much as it showed the debasing of our political culture by a demagogic faction, and how much damage that had done. In the episode, of course, the bamboozled people realize the error of their ways; in real life, people most certainly haven't; if anything, they've gotten worse!
