Succession’s Trump inspired election episode ‘America Decides’ lays bare the damage of the right-wing media machine

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “What will be the first great piece of art about the Trump administration?” “Who will portray him in the inevitable biopics?” “Which actor will one day win an Oscar for playing US president Donald J Trump?” Well, it may not be the first great piece of art about the tumultuous Trump era, but with its antepenultimate episode, “America Decides”, Succession has produced one of the definitive artistic statements on the rise of Trump. In the world of Succession, it’s election night, with bland liberal frontrunner Daniel Jiménez coming up against right-wing firebrand Jeryd Mencken. We already know from last season’s “What it Takes” that Mencken is seriously bad news. Stripped of all Trump’s foibles, his braggadocio and physical buffoonery, Mencken is just a repellent husk of toxic ideology: his acceptance speech at the episode’s close is ominous and not funny in the slightest.