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Given King's online behavior, I wouldn't be surprised at all if these changes were at his suggestion and/or insistance. For that matter, I'd be surprised if Hammil wasn't trying to cram in as many Trumpisms into his performance as he could.
I've only read The Long Walk once, as part of a paperback collecting four stories written under the Richard Bachman alias, called "The Bachman Books." I remember being amused by the blurb on the back that proclaimed that the writing was "unmistakably Steven King," as I was comparing them to It and The Stand, and thinking these tightly-written stories couldn't be further from the King I was familiar with. I didn't pick up on the themes of young masculine aggressiveness in The Long Walk that you did, but I probably just wasn't mature enough at the time. I didn't dislike it, but didn't find it as enjoyable as the other books in the collection; Rage, Roadwork, and The Running Man, each of which have interesting readings (to me, at least) in light of the modern culture war.
Rage, famously, was intentionally allowed to fall out of print by King after a school shooting, which seemed to foreshadow the modern refusal to believe that depiction != endorsement, as well as cries that "You Missed the Point" when villains with sympathetic elements, well, elicit sympathy. In interviews at the time, King seemed to want it both ways, both wanting his book pulled for fear of it inspiring others, while simultaneously insisting authors have the right to publish works like this. It seems he (and the left as a whole) have backed away from the latter.
Roadwork is a more grounded version of the Joel Schumacker's Falling Down, and like that film, if it were more well-known, I would anticipate a "critical re-evaluation," reframing story as one about the horrors of White Male Rage. For those not familiar, in the story, the protoganist's entire neighborhood, as well as his employer, is being demolished to make way for highway expansion that will benefit nobody in the community; it exists solely to ensure continued eligibility for Federal Highway funding. Having lost his son to cancer some years prior, the man is too emotionally tied to his home to just walk away, setting him on a collision course with the government. The story bounces back and forth between the beginnings of his and his wife's relationship, and their current situation; doubtless Red Pillers would pick up on the wife's filing of divorce, and in particular, her claiming that she "feels like I was raped" when the husband admits he refused the emminant domain offer, as yet more evidence that all women are devious, but imo this is just King's clunky writing. The revelation after the man's death, that this whole scheme by the state was just to ensure continued access to Federal Highway funding, along with the theme of local government seeing the citizens not as the people that they serve, but obstacles to work around, or run over, as necessary, resonates profoundly with the modern right-wing populist movement
The Running Man, most famous for the "adaptation" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (Deeper than you might think. Maybe.), is an example of one of the biggest flips between the left and the right in modern America i personally experienced. Growing up, left wing media I consumed would always present techno-dystopias, where the corporations and government worked hand-in-glove with each other, as an existential threat. I can't imagine post-Watergate through late 90's sci-fi cheering on government attempts to quash anonymous dissent; for that matter, i couldn't imagine those same leftists cheering on corporate pandering towards minorities as anything other than cynical manipulation, as opposed to modern idpol demands that the slop have "people that look like me." Post 9-11, I'd always figure that this story could never be adapted to film, but apparently it's happening. I wonder if they'll keep in the bit where the government sells worthless masks to the hoi polloi to combat the pervasive air pollution (while keeping the absurdly expensive masks that actually work to themselves), or if the writers will get worried MAGA types will think that's a reference to COVID vaccines. For that matter, no way Ben Richard's wife being reduced to turning tricks to support their family is presented as shameful as it is in the story; "sex work is real work!" after all.
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