I think American culture had just become so disengaged from the process of government, and we'd been so fuzzed out by our pop culture around us, that I don't think people really saw this guy for what he was.
When you screen it the first couple times, you're just trying to get the movie to work, trying to get the story to flow, trying to find out where your areas are where you have enough breath to laugh a little bit. So you're doing that the first two or three screenings, and then finally, you dial the movie in and it's working, and at that point, it's 50/50 as far as what's funny and what's working. Sometimes you'll put something in and it will just die so hard that it'll almost kill the movie.
I grew up with a single mom who was a waitress. We were on food stamps. My mom then got Pell Grants, put herself through college to get a degree to get a better job. Because we were broke, I then had to go to a state school. I went to Temple University, and had to get loans. So I grew up in a world where I saw the government helping individuals pull themselves up, and saw it work very successfully.
We punch mirrors and we explore our darker selves. No, it's just an amalgam of all newscasters that we grew up with. Sort of like before there was cable, when these people were like gods.