Guest post by Craig S. Simpson.
He is running for President of the United States. His campaign van is a recurring presence in the film, as is his voice, an eloquent southern drawl. Blaring over loudspeakers as the van rolls through Nashville, Tennessee is an audio recording of the homespun wisdom of third-party candidate Hal Phillip Walker. His credentials are never stated (nor is he ever actually seen), but he appears to specialize in folksy aphorisms. “When you pay more for an automobile than it cost Columbus to make his first voyage to America, that’s politics” is one such maxim. “No wonder we often know how to make a watch, but we don’t know the time of day” is another. What deep thoughts like these truly mean is an open question, but they appear to excite the American electorate. If it is unclear what Walker stands for, we gradually discover what he stands against: oil companies, the Electoral College, the National Anthem, and lawyers in Congress. The nominee of the Replacement Party, Hal Phillip Walker is, in his own words, “for doing some replacing.” His slogan, “New Roots for the Nation,” carries populist appeal for a country on the eve of its bicentennial—a commemoration tempered by a collective desire for change. (more…)
