“The Purge: Election Year.” A violent fiction just barely stranger than the truth.

Say what you will about the horror franchise but the latest Purge movie is eerily prophetic in its depiction of the divisive state of our Union. For those unawares, the concept deals with a government sanctioned night of rage that takes place once a year in America. All crimes, including murder, are legal for 12 hours. The subsequent carnage is supposed to “purge” everyone’s pent up frustrations and lead to less crime overall. Something like that anyway.

Regardless of what we think of this science fiction one cannot deny how prescient the idea is. So ripe is the concept I don’t know where to begin. Ragged race relations? Check. Police brutality? Check. The gun debate? Check. Political unrest? Check. Rich vs. poor? Check. And on and on. Clearly, The Purge has tapped into the zeitgeist in ways unimaginable and uncomfortable.

None more so that the latest entry, aptly titled The Purge: Election Year.

One scene has a corrupt, white officer shooting a young black man dead through the window of his car. Another has angry black civilians rampaging against a stronghold of rich white people. At times it was like watching You Tube videos of chaos in our streets. And I haven’t even mentioned the gross similarities between the “Election Year” depicted in the movie and the one we are enduring now. The two Presidential candidates are a fearsome and corrupt rich white man and a liberal leaning female. Sound familiar?

Of course the film is over-the-top and grossly distorted. But it’s all too freakishly on point. That the film was produced well before the recent mayhem in our country further adds to its power. If America wasn’t going through what it is going through right now this movie would come and go as a mildly entertaining piece of pulp genre. Instead, it damn near passes for a documentary.

America’s changing face will determine who wins Presidential election.

Who does America see when it looks in the mirror?

There are several reasons Barack Obama will beat Mitt Romney in the Presidential election. For me, however, one reason stands out, as ironic as it is provocative: Barack Obama looks more like a modern American person than Mitt Romney.

There. I’ve said it. Something I’ve been pondering for months, based on an epiphany I had while watching Mitt Romney campaigning on TV, desperately trying to come off as a man of the people. I thought to myself, How is it that a biracial person named Barack Obama seems more normal than a middle-aged white guy wearing a suit? I realized in my brief lifetime the face of America has changed, almost literally, from one to the other.

In my parents’ America real adults were Caucasian, middle-aged, men. That’s what they looked like on TV. That’s what they looked like on the train. Everyone else (children, teenagers, women, blacks, Asians, Gays, etc.) was everyone else –in other words, a minority.

Now it is the once staunch icon of American Patriarchy (a middle-aged, white male) who comes off as different, even strange. A robot. I don’t know if it is technically true (based on census info, etc.) but President Obama resembles more people in this country (our cities anyway) than does Mitt Romney.

This isn’t about politics. On that score both men drive me nuts. This is about birds of many colored feathers flocking together. As more and more Hispanics, Asians and people of color assimilate into American society the age of the white dude is petering out.  The melting pot has overflowed. America no longer has a specific race to define it. And if it did it wouldn’t be Anglo Saxon. Not anymore.

The New American Family…

Think I’m wrong? Try this experiment. Next time you go to a truly public place (a movie theater or the DMV) look around you. Uh huh. That’s what I thought.

Whether we like it or not, Barack Obama will retain his Presidency.  What makes this even more remarkable is how unlikely a bi-racial President seemed just five years ago. Even now, while some still doggedly question Obama’s citizenship I’m positing that regardless of his paperwork Barack Obama has more in common with the New America than his inquisitors. Obama is or “feels” more ethnic, female, gay and youthful than Mitt Romney. Way more.

This fires up the predominantly male, white right. Yet, what they fail (or refuse) to grasp is that these minorities have grown considerably in size and stature. They are the new America. By comparison, Mitt Romney seems like your father’s President, old-fashioned and out of touch.

Scream if you want. Cheer. Whether one chooses to be empowered or threatened is too radioactive for me to probe further. I probably don’t have the chops to do it right anyway. I’m just telling you who’s going to win the election and why.