Journalists who insist the conservatives don’t believe in facts are greeting the very fictional final season of The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu with the ridiculous rerun spin of “wow, this repressive religious dictatorship is so exactly like Trump’s America.”
Former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy – Mr. “Facts First” – used his Status newsletter to promote an interview with the series show-runners Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang to discuss “a world that, alarmingly, has striking similarities to the fictional Gilead.” What garbage. Darcy set the ideological stage:
With Donald Trump back in office, reproductive rights being stripped away, and democratic norms unraveling, the themes in the series that once felt like far-off storytelling now eerily resemble real-world headlines.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Status, Tuchman and Chang reflected on the show’s prescience, how actual events have shaped the series, and the creative responsibility of telling stories about authoritarianism when democracy feels increasingly fragile.
They often start with the repeal of Roe vs. Wade – but that happened because voters elected President Trump, and he nominated Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn nationwide abortion on demand. That original decision wasn’t any more democratic than its repeal. It was judicial activism, not legislation. But leftists think freedom starts with the freedom to kill the unborn.
DARCY: When you started The Handmaid’s Tale series, did you imagine the final season would air during such a dark political moment—Trump back in office, with significant democratic backsliding taking place in the U.S.?
ERIC TUCHMAN: No, I don’t think any of us could have predicted how closely the show would maintain its relevance and continue to reflect real events. The series has been called a cautionary tale about what can happen when power is abused and people’s rights and freedoms are stripped away. But that warning was ignored, apparently, by the majority of voters, and Roe v. Wade was overturned. Women in our country have fewer rights now than when we started production in 2016.
Or as Tuchman told The Hollywood Reporter, “Many people have called the show a cautionary tale and it seems to me that not enough people were cautioned, and here we are again after a very consequential, shocking election.”
DARCY: Obviously, while there are similarities, the U.S. as it stands now is not Gilead. But do you worry that the country might be on that path? I think one of the chilling aspects of the show is how it shows how democratic backsliding can happen so quickly.
YAHLIN CHANG : It is chilling. It’s also true—democracies backslide and fail all the time. Seventy percent of the world’s population lives in an autocracy. In our show, America as we know it was just this exceptional, temporary, extremely fragile experiment. Living in the world of Gilead imaginatively for this many years, I’m actually shocked that American democracy has lasted for so long.
Chang told The Hollywood Reporter that when they try explore get into the mindsets of authoritarians, “It’s about imagining what the worst people would do if given the reins of power,” she says. “You have to imagine if you have no moral compass, if you are completely guided by avarice and selfishness and cowardice and covering your own ass, how would you act and what would you do?”
Earth to Chang: aborting an unborn baby is often guided by “selfishness and cowardice and covering your own ass.” Many believe it shows "no moral compass." But to the libertine left, every abortion is a triumph of liberty.
