This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Season 5 premiere of "Veep" offers us a glimpse, perhaps, of what a Donald Trump presidency might be like.
In the midst of all her other difficulties — the election just ended in an electoral college tie — President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is told that in the wake of catastrophic mudslides in Idaho, the governor of that state is calling for her to declare a federal state of emergency.
"How much did we lose Idaho by?" President Meyer asks (Sunday, 11:30 p.m., HBO).
After being told it's more than 212,000 votes, she says, "Then I declare a state of go-[expletive]-yourself. I'm not spending money to scrape mud off a bunch of dirt roads."
And then there's a discussion of which are the funnier natural disasters — mud slides or sinkholes.
It's hilarious. And a little scary. Because who couldn't envision something very similar to this happening if Trump gets elected?
As I've mentioned before, my own experiences with Trump leave me flabbergasted that he's still in the running. And I'm not alone among TV critics. I know. I've asked a bunch of them.
We're all pretty much astonished that a guy who sat in front of us, bragged outrageously about himself, lied about the ratings of his reality show and continued to lie (and make excuses) when his falsehoods were pointed out to him is leading in the race for the GOP nomination.
We laughed at him then. He's not so funny now.
And the 2016 campaign to date has made the job of the "Veep" writers a great deal harder. The show about a failed presidential candidate who lucked into a spot on the ticket and, later, became president when her predecessor resigned because of his wife's mental-health issues — a show in which something goofy and/or outrageous happens in every episode — seems considerably less preposterous in light of what we're reading in the news every day.
If the "Veep" writers had given us fictional candidates who toss insults at each other about the size of their genitals and insult each other's spouses, I would have criticized them for going too far in pursuit of comedy. For being incredibly unrealistic and unbelievable.
In Season 4 of "House of Cards," which is currently streaming on Netflix, the first lady has some, well, political ambitions. (No spoiler here.)
It's certainly no less believable than the real race, in which a former first lady is running for the Democratic nomination against a septuagenarian who has become the darling of youth voters — a socialist senator who, even now, is officially an independent back home in Vermont.
That's hard to believe.
And those are just two examples of dozens. It seems that a day doesn't go by that there isn't something in the news about the current campaign that's so bizarre it makes "Veep" and "House of Cards" seem tame in comparison.
How weird is that?
Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.