President Donald Trump’s unusual pledge to send out a $5,000 check to every American citizen if the Republicans win the November midterms has been compared to the dystopian comedy Idiocracy.
Trump said Wednesday at the midterms convention in Dallas, Texas, that his administration would pay a “Trump Dividend” to each American adult if voters help Republicans keep their congressional majority through the 2026 midterms.
Online critics quickly noticed the similarity between the pledge and a scene from the 2006 movie, when Terry Crews’ character, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, gives an impassioned and absurd campaign speech promising to give everyone in the country $1 million each.
“I don’t give a damn about no jobs,” Crews’ character said in the scene. “People don’t need no jobs. I tell you what people need. People need money. Lots and lots of money.
“That’s why the only jobs I’m going to create are down at the mint. That’s right, we’re going to print so much damn money I’m going to give every single American $1 million,” he said, throwing dollar bills in the air.
One person who made the comparison was former MAGA politician Marjorie Taylor Greene, who shared a clip of the Idiocracy scene on X.
“Our President’s speech at the RNC midterm convention,” wrote Greene, resharing the clip. “$5,000 for the peasants will be in the mail after the election only if you vote Republican, along with those DOGE and tariff money checks.”
Other commentators noted the comparison. “It's no longer a prediction, it's a playbook,” one person wrote of the film on X.
“This was supposed to be a movie but some kind of way it became a current day documentary,” said another while someone else wrote, “Idiocracy was so far ahead of its time.”
Idiocracy, which imagined a future with eccentric political figures, wasn’t a box office hit when it was released but has since become a cult classic as viewers have observed a striking similarity with modern events. The film makes a particular point of displaying ubiquitous advertising campaigns throughout, as well as satirizing themes of consumerism, political power and absurd politicians.
At the Republican midterm convention in Texas, Trump said: “So if the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump Dividend.”
He argued the checks would be a reflection of the country’s economic success under the Trump administration and the funds collected as a result of the president’s tariffs, and said that funds would have to be spent in America.
He did not explain how that rule would be enforced nor where the Treasury would source the money from.
The gesture has been branded as a “bribe” by some critics, while analysts have cast doubt over whether the money would ever materialize.
The pledge would likely cost the country more than $1.3 trillion based on the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, which recorded 258.3 million American adults in 2020.
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