I rewatched the first season of Succession this weekend. On second viewing, I realized it is the perfect show for the Trump era. The show is about a media mogul and his four kids. There's a lot of infighting, backstabbing, and jockeying for position, and a not-too-subtle Oedipal struggle between the octogenarian father and the son he passes over for the top job in the company. But more than anything, the show is about how the rules do not apply to the very rich. Victims of their behavior, sometimes illegal and other times simply immoral, are given hush money payments, forced to comply with NDAs, and otherwise bullied with the threat of teams of white collar lawyers in order to make their problems go away. None of them suffer consequences, whether it is wild child Roman's failed satellite launch that blows up on the pad or his older brother Ken killing someone while stoned and dumping his car into a creek. The family's putative brother-in-law, who is not from money but comes into it thanks to his engagement to the patriarch's daughter, laughs at being ripped off for a $2,000 bottle of vodka at a club - the rich, they do not live like you and me.
And while all of this is morally reprehensible, it is also an apt reflection on our country in this moment. It is led by a man who has never suffered a consequence for decades of illegal and immoral conduct, indeed, he has been rewarded for it with the highest office in our land. But it is not just him, it is now a coterie of people in his orbit who traffic and leverage their positions of power for their own personal gain. And in the rare circumstance that they are called to account, they lose their jobs but not their prestige, there is always another hustle to start, another grift to run, another sucker willing to buy their bullshit. It is all quite depressing.
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