Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

Joss Whedon’s Super PAC imagines a weather forecast under President Trump. It’s … bleak.

Keegan-Michael Key’s weatherman promises “heavy waves of denial” and “high blood pressure fronts.”

Caroline Framke
Caroline Framke wrote about culture, which usually means television. Also seen @ The A.V. Club, The Atlantic, Complex, Flavorwire, NPR, the fridge to get more seltzer.

Joss Whedon’s superpowered Super PAC is at it again.

Save the Day launched in September and counts many of Whedon’s famous friends — from Mark Ruffalo to Robert Downey Jr. to Keegan-Michael Key — among its ranks. The group’s first missive was a star-studded affair that begged people to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Now Save the Day has imagined what a weather report might look like in the event that Donald Trump is elected president — and woof is it bleak.

As outlined by a relentlessly cheery meteorologist played by Key, President Trump’s initial days in office will bring “a heavy wave of denial” from the coasts, “trapping a high blood pressure front right in the middle of the country.” Then, he says through a panicked grin, “down South, that’s going to put civil unrest back to the mid- to early ‘60s.”

It only gets worse from there, as the forecast takes a dark turn, with a nuclear winter accelerating climate change and a “rise in both temperature and existential misery.”

The rest of the clip is packed with jokes about how smug Canada will feel if Trump wins and warnings about a Trump-inspired Wall Street becoming a “suckhole” that could sink all 50 states.

And though Key never mentions Hillary Clinton by name, the message of whom Save the Day would like you to vote for becomes clear when he cuts to a crying morning show host, whom he immediately rebuffs. “You voted for Jill Stein, you thoughtless ass! Now suck it up like the rest of us,” he says, as an ominous black cloud engulfs the entirety of the United States map behind him.

As Enver Gjokaj’s determinedly upbeat news anchor summarizes, it’s all “pretty dark stuff.” But with only three weeks to go until Election Day — and voter registration deadlines closing in across the country — Save the Day clearly sees no need to mince its words about the importance of not sitting out this election cycle.

More in Culture

Good Medicine
The alcohol crisis quietly hitting high-stress, “high-status” workersThe alcohol crisis quietly hitting high-stress, “high-status” workers
Good Medicine

What The Pitt can teach us about addiction.

By Dylan Scott
Advice
What trainers actually think about the 12-3-30 workoutWhat trainers actually think about the 12-3-30 workout
Advice

Have we finally unlocked exercise’s biggest secret? Or is this yet another lie perpetrated Big Treadmill?

By Alex Abad-Santos
Technology
The case for AI realismThe case for AI realism
Technology

AI isn’t going to be the end of the world — no matter what this documentary sometimes argues.

By Shayna Korol
Podcasts
How fan fiction went mainstreamHow fan fiction went mainstream
Podcast
Podcasts

The community that underpins Heated Rivalry, explained.

By Danielle Hewitt and Noel King
Culture
Why Easter never became a big secular holiday like ChristmasWhy Easter never became a big secular holiday like Christmas
Culture

Hint: The Puritans were involved.

By Tara Isabella Burton
Culture
The sticky, sugary history of PeepsThe sticky, sugary history of Peeps
Culture

A few things you might not know about Easter’s favorite candy.

By Tanya Pai