Succession's Big Mencken Moment Deserves A Closer Examination
Spoilers for "Succession" follow.
Well, it's official. Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk) will be the next President of the United States — thankfully not in this reality. Back in "Succession" season 3's "What It Takes," the fascist Congressman was recruited to run as the Republican nominee for president by the Roy family (mostly Logan and Roman). In the latest episode, fittingly titled "America Decides," he's elected president — but not with the will of the people.
On election night, Mencken supporters firebomb a polling office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Wisconsin has become a swing state since the 2010s but Milwaukee is a blue firewall, so most of the destroyed votes surely would've gone to Mencken's opponent Daniel Jiménez (Elliot Villar). The lack of those votes is enough to flip Wisconsin to Mencken and give him the 270 electoral votes he needs for victory.
The Roys' own news network ATN calls Wisconsin for Mencken and ends the night by declaring him the winner. Let's break down the key players, the reasons behind their decision-making, and the ramifications.
Roman
Roman (Kieran Culkin) has been all in for Mencken since they met at the "Future Freedom Summit" back in "What It Takes." As a rich, white, edgelord with a sadistic streak, Roman is the target demographic for Mencken's flavor of far-right politics. There's another, more cynical reason for Roman's support though — should he be elected, Mencken has promised Roman he will block GoJo's acquisition of Waystar Royco.
Early in the episode, when it seems like Jiménez has it in the bag, Roman pays a visit to Mencken's campaign. He talks with the man himself and prepares to run cover for his loss — i.e. using ATN to allege voter fraud. "Even if you're not going to be the president, you will be our president," Roman promises.
Once the attack in Milwaukee happens, Roman rises up as Mencken's voice inside ATN. He pushes relentlessly to have ATN call Wisconsin for Mencken and obfuscate who the culprit of the Milwaukee attack was. Once Arizona is called as well, Roman pushes to have the network declare Mencken the winner. On all counts, he succeeds.
Mencken only "wins" because the destroyed Milwaukee votes can't be counted — and it's all but assured those votes would've pushed Jiménez over the line. As a result, there is no true winner, since the results will have to go through the judicial system. The impartial thing for a news organization to do would be to end the night with the winner undeclared. Roman instead subverts democracy to push his agenda, cynically saying he's only counting "the votes we do have." By having ATN announce Mencken as the winner, Roman creates a narrative that will embolden his supporters and likely lead to more violence. This naturally upsets people — especially the Roy family's token liberal, Shiv (Sarah Snook).
Shiv
When we first meet Shiv (Sarah Snook), she's working outside the family business as a Democratic campaign operative. She even briefly works on the campaign of Senator Gil Eavis (Eric Bogosian), who became Jiménez's running mate. Now, Shiv isn't exactly a principled liberal — recall season 2, episode 9, "DC," when she convinced a rape survivor not to testify against Waystar. It's also suggested her political leanings are an act of rebellion against her father.
However, to her credit, Shiv is genuinely alarmed by Mencken. That's why throughout the night she pushes back against ATN's coverage of him. She's the only one who doesn't hem and haw about the Milwaukee attack and scrambles to prevent ATN from calling Wisconsin and then the election. Realizing that her brothers care foremost about controlling Waystar, she pretends to call Nate (Ashley Zukerman) and says that Jiménez will block the acquisition too. When it comes out that she lied, that seals Kendall and Roman's decision to have ATN call the election for Mencken.
Now, for some extra context. Shiv has been working with GoJo CEO Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) to undermine her brothers and doesn't want the deal to be blocked. So, why did she pretend to call Nate? Was it principled desperation or a failed attempt to have it both ways, preserving the acquisition and American democracy? Shiv definitely believes it was the former but her brothers believe the latter. In any case, the Roy sibling alliance is finally over and Shiv ends the episode fully throwing in with Matsson to destroy her brothers.
Kendall
Kendall isn't a fan of Mencken — he calls him a fascist and in the previous episode, his daughter Sophie (Swayam Bhatia) was harassed by Mencken supporters. However, Kendall cares first and foremost cares about maintaining the Waystar throne, so Mencken's offer to block the GoJo deal is tempting. In this democracy-corrupting trifecta, Kendall is the ego to Roman's id and Shiv's superego.
He's reticent to have ATN call Wisconsin for Mencken, but while his two younger siblings spit venom back and forth, he stays quieter. When the Arizona results come in, the allure of a Mencken victory becomes stronger. Kendall is willing to hear Shiv out, but when her deception comes out, he throws his lot in with Roman. As for what happened to Sophie? Kendall finally realizes and accepts, "I'm not a very good father."
I'd argue Kendall's actions are the most morally bankrupt of the three. He displays more concern about the threat Mencken poses than Roman, but to shore up his own position, he goes ahead with supporting him. In doing so, Kendall throws his own family under the bus — like father, like son.
Connor
One of the longest-running gags on "Succession" has been Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) running for president. Since the beginning of season 4, he's been polling at 1% and there was concern that he could be a spoiler candidate. That's why in the previous episode, "Tailgate Party," the Mencken campaign offered Connor an ambassadorship if he dropped out. Connor, a devout libertarian, would only appeal to people otherwise intending to vote for Mencken.
Well, predictably, Connor flames out like many third-party candidates before him, not winning a single state. To salvage something from this $100 million trainwreck, Connor concedes live on ATN before the night is over. He offers his support to Mencken, but halfway through the speech, Connor throws his (multiple) previous running mates under the bus and insults the American people for not choosing him. After that, it remains to be seen if this will net him the promised ambassadorship to Slovenia.
Connor's actions probably didn't have much of an impact — as is typical for him — but his pro-Mencken stance reflects that of ATN as a whole.
ATN's management
While the Roy siblings rule the roost, the ones putting their decisions into effect are the network's upper management: Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), Greg (Nicholas Braun), and "Decision Desk" Darwin (Adam Godley). Based on his role in this episode, Darwin is ATN's Steve Kornacki, a numbers wonk who lives and breathes polls and election law. Darwin generally pushes back against being too pro-Mencken but for pragmatic reasons — he doesn't want to get in legal trouble.
Tom, on the other hand, is fighting hard to keep his position as head of ATN. He knows that neither Shiv nor Matsson are his friends, so he's aligned with Kendall and Roman. Plus, he's probably relishing the chance to hurt Shiv after their explosive break-up the night before in "Tailgate Party." Greg — who by the end is the one that actually gives the order to call it for Mencken — is spineless and just does what his bosses tell him to.
There is another reason for ATN being proactively pro-Mencken. It's mentioned that other, even further-right news networks such as "Freedom Voice America" are gung-ho in calling Wisconsin, and thus the election. Roman argues that ATN can't be "outflanked" lest they lose their audience. In real life, Fox News (the real ATN) has faced competition from far-right networks like One America News Network (OAN) and NewsMax. This is what happens when you let the lunatics run the asylum.
The politicians
Let's look at the two most important chess pieces here: Mencken and Jiménez themselves. What are their motivations for blocking/not blocking the Waystar/GoJo deal? A business acquisition of this scale would have antitrust implications — in real life, the Fox/Disney merger had to be approved by the Department of Justice for this reason. However, Mencken's motives are not so pure. On top of his alliance with Roman, Mencken's "populist" faction of the GOP generally aren't fans of the technology sector due to its perceived "liberal bias" — Missouri Senator Josh Hawley literally wrote a book called "The Tyranny of Big Tech." There's also the fact that GoJo is a Swedish company, so a nationalist like Mencken wouldn't approve of "foreign influence" in a news operation as big as ATN.
Jiménez is probably reluctant to block the deal because he doesn't want the appearance of quid pro quo with the Roys — Nate's conversation with Kendall last episode indicated as such. In real life, if a Democratic candidate was found cutting deals with Rupert Murdoch, their base would give them hell.
The election results
Mencken's team was preparing to dispute the results before the Milwaukee attack, but then they capitalize on it to claim the election. In Mencken's victory speech at the episode's end, he's grabbed the crown with both hands and isn't looking back. This opportunism reflects the GOP's real-life, all-but-explicit policy: "Elections only count if we win them."
This goes back to the 2000 presidential election when the Supreme Court decided in Bush v. Gore to end the Florida ballot recount and gift the presidency to George W. Bush. It only worsened after the election of the first Black president, Barack Obama, in 2008. Nowadays, Republican state legislators regularly pass laws restricting voting and gerrymandered election maps. Whenever they lose, they cry foul or work to grab power from democratic victors. Take the 2020 election, where Donald Trump cried about absolutely baseless claims of voter fraud while trying to get the Georgia Secretary of State to "find" the votes he needed to win.
Now, we don't get much of a look at the inside of the Jiménez campaign. All we see is the candidate himself giving a televised speech and calling to "respect the process." This is perfectly demonstrative of Democratic fecklessness; they play fair and refuse to accept that Republicans don't. Democratic politicians sit on their hands and ask for Republicans to "work with them in good faith" even though they never will. In effect, the Democrats have abdicated power and ceded it to their opposition.
With "America Decides," "Succession" lays bare the inevitable: greedy oligarchs, a corrupt media, and an opposition party utterly unprepared and/or unwilling to fight back against rising fascism will be the doom of us all.
"Succession" airs on HBO and streams on HBO Max at 9:00 p.m. EST.