So, for this week, I wanted to do a thing about Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and use some grouping of articles to say that it still is an accurate criticism of American politics. To a sense, I still believe it to be true, especially considering how much the media is owned by a small few, and the people who do control it tend to be politically motivated. But, when looking for those sort of articles, I couldn’t find any by a reputable source, and those that were halfway reputable were such angry editorials that I knew I couldn’t use them in any way without drawing some sort of angry response.

But, you know what I did find out about this movie’s impact? Oh my god do people love using it as headlines. If you google something along the lines of “_____ Goes To Washington” or “Real Life Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” you’ll be inundated with articles who use the title of this movie, rather uncreatively, to say that whoever they’re supporting in their article is some political outsider who is trying to clean up Washington because “It’s a mess!” No joke, I found this article titled “Mr. Trump Goes To Washington.” Like Richard Nixon and Watergate, I think Capra’s legacy will be best remembered and lived through lazy news outlets.

But this goes a lot with what Professor Jordan was saying about populism and how it’s still everywhere. I thought he was making an unfair point about everyday appeal by politicians, but in all seriousness, this is crazy. Everyone wants their politician to be the new guy who will pull a Mr. Smith and make some miraculous change to Washington. All of these articles (many of them seem to be just blog posts except for that weird Trump one) are supporting some politician and saying that they will fix the country. I find it kind of weird. I would love to see some sort of analysis about this sort of headline and see if it confirms my suspicions.