MovieChat Forums > Fail Safe (1964) Discussion > Was the President Republican or Democrat...

Was the President Republican or Democrat?

posted 18 years ago by ewarn-1
36 replies | jump to latest

If the president was a Republican, he would have been reassured of being re- elected. A Democrat would have a hard campaign in front of him. Imagine being his campaign manager and trying to prepare for the debates. Rough! Would the Red Sox win the next world series? Would the NY Giants lose the NFC East? All these questions should be answered in a sequel. And what exactly DID happen to Gen. Black? Was he able to complete his mission? We didn't see no explosions. Man, watching this makes me appreciate dr strangelove more, it gave you your money's worth

[–] knuckleheadsmith 14 years ago

Democrat, after all, it was a liberal Democrat who was the only one to order the dropping of the bomb...

[–] DC1977 14 years ago

I prefer fropping.

[–] nvasapper 14 years ago

The logical assumption is that he was a Democrat. The actor portraying him- Henry Fonda- was a well known liberal progressive and the film takes place at a time when Democrats ruled the White House. Also, the President is shown as a thoughtful, humanistic, compassionate man- someone more in line with the stereotype associated with Democrats than Republicans.

General Black committed suicide with his cyanide kit after dropping the hydrogen bombs on New York City. He completed his mission and then immediately did himself.

It was a brilliant move on Sidney Lumet's part not to show the hydrogen bombs exploding. Depicting a nuclear blast would have been anti-climactic. The way he did it was much more effective and nerve shattering- showing street scenes of the city as the countdown to releasing the bombs was made, followed by General Black's suicide and then freeze frames of the different scenes we just saw indicating that everyone dies at the same moment.

[–] skiop 14 years ago

I'm not sure about the politics of 1964, but in by the political atmosphere of 2010, I'd guess that he's a Democrat. Republicans love starting wars, after all. A Republican president would love to bomb the capital city of a current enemy, on purpose.

[–] liscarkat-2 13 years ago

But only a modern progressive Democrat president would love to murder millions of his own innocent citizens to make a political point. I'll bet liberals get a hard-on watching Fonda condemn New York City to death. You hate Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II, yet you think this fictional leader is a hero. Inscrutable, microscopic minds!

[–] mark-1589 12 years ago

To liscarkat-2 - I see that you really enjoy totally distorting matters in order "to make a political point". It is unbelievable the utter nonsense that whack-jobs on the Right believe they can sell as credible criticism of the Left. Are you really attempting to peddle the nonsense that a "modern progressive Democrat [sic] President would live to murder millions of his own innocent citizens" and that "liberals get a hard-on watching Fonda condemn New York City to death"? With all due respect (i.e., NONE), are you on crack or just totally insane? You just take it as a given (without any evidence whatsoever) that a Democratic President hates and wants to destroy America. Well, what do you have to back that up? NOTHING! In any case, you have totally distorted what occurred in the film. The President did not destroy NY "to make a political point" (whatever point that would be, I cannot imagine in any case), he did it as the only option to get the USSR to stay its hand from launching an all out nuclear attack in retaliation of the destruction of Moscow (or did you imagine that the Soviet Premier would just accept the "Opps, accidents happen" explanation and let it go at that?). Such retaliation and the resulting American strike would most likely have destroyed humanity altogether. The film sets up a no win situation evidently in order to make the point that the Mutually-Assured Destruction of the Cold War was an insane state of affairs that could lead to a cataclysm unknown in human history. How exactly do you imagine a tough, real American, conservative "Republic" President would resolve that situation? Just launch an immediate all out strike on the USSR, hoping to wipe it off the map so that they could not launch a retaliatory strike? Is that what gives you conservatives a hard-on?

[–] Ed in MO 12 years ago

I think that whatever his party affiliation, the president was done after dropping an H-bomb on New York City. There is no way that the millions of American people who lost love ones in that catastrophe would ever forgive him. People are tribal....they are not logical. Not only would the president be done politically, but he would be finished as a human being in the USA. He would be hounded wherever he went, possibly be put on trial for his life and even convicted and executed (unless some very powerful friends intervened and hustled him off to some secluded place out West for retirement). His name would live in infamy.

Some scholars might say, "Well, what else could he have done after our bomber mistakenly took out Moscow? How else could he have prevented WWIII?" But the American people would have considered him a monster for murdering his own citizens.