50 Years Ago Today: A Political Commentary on "The Night of the Living Dead"

Imagine: you’re driving through the countryside with your sister in your 1967 Lemans Pontiac on your way to visit your grandfather’s grave. There’s nobody out there except the two of you when suddenly your radio—that previously cut out— resumes transmission and as you arrive at the cemetery, it begins to thunder and you see a strange man in the distance. “They’re coming for you Barbara, they’re coming for you,” you say jokingly as the man gets closer and closer until he grabs your sister! You try to pry them off of her, but in your struggle with the stranger he knocks you out, leaving your sister to fend for herself. As you come to, you realize that you are not in a graveyard fighting for your life against a stranger that looks like he just crawled out of a grave, you’re actually in director George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead.”Released in 1968, this horror film became one of the first zombie movies ever created that targeted the public’s fear about what would happen if the dead came out of their graves and began to walk again. While this concept is scientifically impossible (to our knowledge), there is a parallel (rather extreme reach) “world” that takes on a very similar tone and plot: our political climate.Although our current president most likely does not eat human flesh (or let’s hope not), his political jargon takes on a pretty similar tone as past “America First” mentality presidents. In its own way, the movie simulates how somewhat dead or non-progressive ideals and political practices can resurrect and roam around on Capitol Hill, inside our Supreme Court and the White House.In the “Night of the Living Dead,” the dead rise and roam around as if they were alive; Trump gets elected and spreads the sentiment of “fake news” which is eerily similar to Richard Nixon’s “the press is the enemy” statement. The dead rise and the living begin to blame each other, thinking that that is the best way to go about fixing the problem; Trump gets elected and the Democratic-Republican divide grows as well as the divide within the Republican party itself, and consequently, the public is constantly at arms pointing the finger at whose fault mass and school shootings are, whose fault the government shutdown is, whose responsibility Dreamers and DACA citizens are, etc. etc.We are not living in 1968 and we are not living in the “Night of the Living Dead”, however it’s 50 years later and it still feels like we’re locked in the farmhouse in the countryside after being chased down by a zombie in a graveyard and now have to survive not knowing what the hell is going on.