Succession's Election Episode Holds A Dark Mirror To The Real Life 2020 Results
This post contains spoilers up for "Succession" season 4, episode 8.
One of the most interesting elements of "Succession" is the uniquely direct way it handles politics. A show like "Veep" went seven seasons straight without clarifying if Selina was a Democrat or a Republican, giving off the vague implication that the meaning of those two terms might be different in this universe. Meanwhile, shows like "The West Wing" were more straightforward about its characters' parties, but they still went and gave us electoral maps that were not based in our reality. (In their 2006 election, for instance, the Democratic candidate wins Texas and the Republican wins California.)
Maybe it's just because most of its main characters aren't actually politicians, but "Succession" has never shied away from giving us a political situation that's basically the same as our own, but worse. The swing states in this universe are the same swing states we currently have, and Mencken is essentially the worst of what the real-world modern Republican party has to offer, except he's got what seems like unfettered editorial input to this America's version of Fox News.
It's been established this season that not even Logan would've allowed that, which means that ATN's actions this episode are meant to be seen as one significant step beyond our current media hellscape. As a result, the Mencken v. Jiménez election ends up being a dark mirror version of the real-life 2020 election, which is also famous for the sheer chaos and confusion of those initial Tuesday night results. "Succession" tells us what could've happened if our media institutions were just a tiny bit more broken than they currently are, and the results are not pretty.
Some incredibly biased coverage
The first sign of impending disaster is the news of the fire in the swing state Wisconsin, which leads to thousands of ballots being lost. Although there's enough data to trust that these ballots would've swung the state for Jiménez, there's no way to prove this definitively before election night's over. The correct media response to this would be to hold off on calling for either candidate and make sure the viewers understand the complexity of the situation.
But thanks to Roman, we instead get the Tucker Carlson-inspired host oversimplifying the issue to: "The Democrats claim a fire is somehow partisan, isn't that crazy?" There's no acknowledgement of how the fire was almost certainly started by Mencken supporters to swing the election in their favor, just as there's no attempt to give viewers a sense of how those ballots likely would've swung.
Thankfully there was no major fire in the real 2020 election to call the Wisconsin results into question; instead, there was the sudden prominence of mail-in ballots. In many swing states, these mail-in ballots were counted last, even though you'd think it'd make more sense for them to be counted first, considering they were sent in ahead of time. In response to this, the apparent Trump pundit strategy was simple: spend months sowing doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, which would inevitably lead to the ballots leaning blue, and then hope for a misleadingly red early showing on election night. Then declare victory as soon as possible, and try to set that narrative in stone before the mail-in ballots could counter it.
This strategy did not succeed, and it can be argued that some of the credit for this can go, surprisingly, to Fox News.
Calling Arizona early
Although most liberals weren't able to breathe easy until a solid two or three days later, the first real, proper sign that Biden would win was when Fox News called Arizona for him at 11:20pm on Election Night. As two New York Times reporters put it, "Mr. Trump and his advisers erupted at the news. If it was true that Arizona was lost, it would call into doubt any claim of victory the president might be able to make." It was apparently the first state that voted for Trump in 2016 to have flipped back to the Democrats, and it massively undermined any chance of establishing a favorable narrative early on.
It was a strange moment, not just because you'd think Fox News would want to help Trump out on his narrative, but because Fox News' call was legitimately premature. As political analyst Nate Cohn put it, "Only The Associated Press, a few hours later, joined Fox in making the call so quickly." He described the call as "a lucky and dangerous guess," one that could've had "potentially dire consequences for trust in American elections."
Trump very nearly did win Arizona, and if he had, this would've thrown more fuel into the fire of the stolen election conspiracy narrative. Thankfully, the Fox call turned out to be correct; public trust was not eroded significantly as a result, and Trump pundits' attempts to take control over the national narrative were undermined before they could really begin. On "Succession," however, things are not going so smoothly.
Calling Arizona early, the bad version
The climax of "America Decides" features Kendall, Roman and Shiv in a power struggle over what to do about Arizona. The state is currently favorable for Mencken, and Mencken winning it would hand him the Presidency, but it's still way too close to reasonably call. For Roman, this doesn't matter: as long as they can crown Mencken President before viewers go to sleep, he thinks this will all but settle it. ATN's narrative for the next couple days is clear: Mencken has already won, and any claims to the contrary are just sore loser Democrats trying to retroactively steal the election. It's the same narrative Trump and his pundits attempted to pull off, but now Mencken has the full, unabashed support of the biggest news organization in the country going along with it.
It's not clear how this will turn out in the final two episodes of the series. Have Kendall and Roman successfully handed Mencken the keys to the White House, or will the hyper-partisan, dishonest nature of their coverage become exposed as more votes trickle in? Thematically, things can go either way. If "Succession" chooses to have Kendall and Roman get away with it with barely any consequences, it would work as a scathing critique of the ultra-rich's outsized influence on media coverage. If Jimenez ends up winning and this all blows up in their face, this would also work as a critique of the rich, but it would be a lot less depressing. Roman smugly declares at the end of the episode that Mencken's win doesn't really matter much, but maybe he's wrong this time. Roman and Kendall have pushed things way too far these past few episodes; maybe now things will finally push back.
There are no winners here
Throughout the past few episodes, the now-fatherless Kendall and Roman have started toying with the idea that they can shape the entire world in whatever direction they want, with zero limits whatsoever. There's no Logan around to tell them no, after all. But considering how ominous this entire episode's felt, it seems clear they've pushed too hard.
It's not just Roman and Kendall who don't look too good coming out of this episode; Tom also gets himself in trouble by not standing up to either of them. He lets Kendall and Roman walk all over him, even though the backlash to ATN's coverage will almost certainly fall on him worst of all. Greg also proves himself to be a spineless lackey once again; when presented with the opportunity to stall for a few minutes before delivering the message to call Arizona for Mencken, he chickens out and allows the plan to go on unthwarted.
Even Shiv, the only person in the episode trying to get ATN to be responsible, still doesn't come across well here. She almost sways Kendall to her side, but inadvertently reveals her involvement with Matsson instead, which pushes Kendall to support Mencken full-on. Shiv has taken a lot of Ls in these past two episodes; it's crazy to think that if she hadn't gotten in a fight with Tom last night, or if she played her hand here with a little bit more tact, this disastrous Arizona call could've been averted. "Succession" has always maintained that Shiv isn't as smart as she thinks she is, but it's only here that the full consequences of Shiv's hubris are finally revealed.
Why it matters
The most terrifying part of this episode, at least from the perspective of someone who voted for Biden, is how believable it is as a look into how the 2020 election could've gone. Despite Biden winning the popular vote by more than seven million votes, the margins in the decisive swing states were still remarkably close. If things had gone even a little bit different — like if there was a ballot-destroying fire in Wisconsin, a state where Biden only won by 20,000 votes — who knows just how badly things could've gone.
Maybe that's why "America Decides" centered its climax around Arizona. In the real world of 2020, Fox's surprising, premature-yet-accurate call was what splashed some cold water on Trump's reelection plans; here, Fox makes a premature call to the exact opposite effect. It's a clear-cut inflection point, one where the universe of "Succession" straightforwardly diverts from the events of our own. We don't know what would've happened if the real 2020 results were this chaotic, but the Roys are about to find out.
In the end, "America Decides" is a deeply sarcastic episode title, as it wasn't America who decided anything. The election was decided by Kendall and Roman, who handed the country over to a fascist for the sake of a short-sighted business decision. Most of us have probably already assumed that the will of millions can be casually overridden by a couple of self-centered billionaires, but it's a whole other thing to see it play out in such excruciating detail. "Succession" has always been pretty bleak and cynical, but with its nightmare scenario of an election, the show may have just given us its darkest episode so far.
New episodes of "Succession" air 9pm Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.