While “The Purge” movies are all explicitly political — indeed, all art is political — DeMonaco was concerned from tipping his violent dystopian thriller into the realm of the polemic. It’s possible to go too far with political messaging, especially if a film devolves into mawkish speeches and extended asides wherein the character explain, in dialogue, what the movie is all about. A message is going to land harder if it’s incorporated into the story more gracefully. 

“Election Year” came right when America was feeling a little wary about the rise of Donald Trump’s popularity, and sharply aware of his racism-laced word salads were being consumed by a bitter segment of the populace. Being subtle wasn’t necessarily on everyone’s minds. “Election Year” is happy to be a blunt, featuring scenes of criminals, dressed as American presidents, beating others senseless with baseball bats. DeMonaco, however, admits in retrospect that he didn’t need to go that hard. He said: 

“I think ‘Purge 3’ was the trickiest. ‘Purge 2,’ I talk to people, and it seems to be their favorite one, but ‘Purge 3,’ I looked at as a political conspiracy thriller, and I did not know if that would go over well with the audience. There’s always the fear that we’re preaching too much. I thought 3 actually pushed it too far into the political realm … but that’s the most successful one, so I was luckily wrong.”

“Election Year” was made for $10 million and earned over $118 million worldwide. Clearly, DeMonaco was tapping into something, whether or not he felt he was being too political. Regardless, DeMonaco stepped away from directing for the next two entries in the series.