‘Succession’: Justin Kirk Breaks Down the Election and How Mencken Differs From Trump

variety.com:

Ethan Shanfeld SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Season 4, Episode 8 of “Succession,” now streaming on HBO Max.

It’s Roman Roy’s world, and we’re all just living in it. Sunday’s hopefully-not-prescient episode of “Succession” pulls back the curtain on how, democracy be damned, a national election can ultimately be swayed by a few people who hold enormous wealth and power.

Such is the case with Jeryd Mencken, Justin Kirk’s slippery Republican presidential candidate who flirts with fascism and makes a not-so-subtle deal with Roman. (Kendall tried to accomplish the same mutual back-scratching last episode with Democrat Daniel Jimenez’s campaign, but his adviser Nate was uncomfortable with the proposition.) When, on election night, a suspicious fire breaks out at a Milwaukee vote-counting center, calling into question the results of 100,000 ballots, Mencken outright promises Roman (Kieran Culkin) that he’ll kill the GoJo merger in exchange for ATN’s support. (It’s unclear whether the fire was started by left-wing extremists or “Menckenists,” as Shiv calls them, but the political alignment of the missing ballots points to the latter.) What this entails is Waystar’s news network prematurely calling Wisconsin, and thus the election, for Mencken.

In a tight and highly questionable race, Mencken delivers a stirring and sinister victory speech in which he says, “It’s now clear I’ve won sufficient electoral votes to be declared the next president of the United States… The election has been called by an authority of known integrity.” Elsewhere in this episode of “Succession,” Shiv (Sarah Snook) tells Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) she’s pregnant with his child, news he doesn’t take well.