Jack Ryan teaches viewers to see the world like an empire -- the way Amazon does

The New Republic

"It doesn’t take a particularly paranoid reading to dig up the Freudian echoes between the TV show’s plot about U.S. hegemony in South America and its parent company’s dreams of global corporate empire," says Andrew Lanham." He adds: "Ostensibly, Jack Ryan says that democracy matters. A key plotline throughout the second season is a looming presidential election in Venezuela and the question of whether a progressive reform candidate running on an anti-corruption platform can beat the oligarchic dictator in charge. But the show is missing a pair of salient questions about democracy: Where’s the democratic control in the U.S. over the use of force abroad, and why is it the CIA’s job to meddle in South America to ensure local populations make the 'right' democratic decisions? Politics, the show implies, especially democracy, is best kept safely offstage. Instead, we should cede decisions about the distribution of resources to the technocratic control of national security experts and global finance gurus like Jack Ryan, with his economics Ph.D. Leave the commercial logistics and the global policing to the specialists, Amazon tells us. You just stream some mildly entertaining TV."