Ending scene of The Ides of March

Quite the opposite, throughout the movie, the theme remained to be "the gears are continually turning". Stephen has settled with the idea that idealism is politics is folly, and the candidate is just another guy and not "the one" hence the playing of "integrity matters, doing the right thing matters" in the background by Governor Mike Morris.

There isn't any drastic change in his character and if there was, he would have taken the alternative route of going to other consulting firms.

The meaning of the end reinforces the true disingenuous nature of what is a political campaign; building stories and playing on words to give the "appearance" of integrity in a candidate.

_{(Whether that's true in reality is another thing altogether)}

Earlier in the movie Stephen explains that he will do anything it takes as long as he believes in the cause. Do you think that he still believes in Morris? I think that says it all.

I disagree I believe the ending is meant to leave your imagination to do the work. A.) you can believe he finally gave up on idealism and just played the game better than anyone or B.) you leave believing he used his knowledge of Molly to leverage into a position to finally do the right thing and tell the truth. The speech by George colony about integrity and honesty could be taken as foreshadowing.

The title of the movie says it all the ides of March the assassination of Julius Caesar he was stabbed literally in his back and then stabbed by the rest of the ppl. So this means that Stephen is going to symbolically stab Morris in the bank by revealing this information and let the ppl, media, other politicians verbally stab Morris of his character issues. He even tells they news reporter "you'll read about it in the funny papers tomorrow" he wouldn't say this unless there was a story to be revealed behind this

You've heard that no one liked Thompson neither did Morris, so Stephen laid out every ''dirty'' information on Morris, and so as Thompson gave that speech at the end that he supports Morris bla-bla, Stephen immediately killed two "dirty" birds by one stone.

I think the movie is deliberately ambiguous at the end to make you internalize an examination of your own personal integrity. However, exploring the plot leads one more to think Stephen did go public with the truth.

On one hand Stephen says that a candidate can start all the wars they want and bomb anywhere they want, but they can't have sex with their intern. So he doesn't consider what Morris did as that bad, until Molly Sterns commits suicide over Zara firing Stephens, presumably because she thinks Zara found out Morris getting her pregnant and Stephen having sex with her. It's what a strict religious girl might do, especially when she's about to have an abortion, which she doesn't believe in either. When Morris isn't upset over Molly's death enough for Stephen, Stephen is sufficiently upset enough, along with getting fired by Zara who blows Stephen's meeting with Duffy all out of proportion, as an excuse to fire him, because he knows Stephen is better than him, turns Stephen against Zara and against Morris who antagonizes him when they meet to talk about Stephen exposing him publicly if he didn't get Zara's job.

Molly's death and then Morris glossing it over and then Stephen getting fired was enough for a man with principle and integrity, as Stephen was, to sacrifice himself and ruin Morris's campaign.

The original meaning indicates a hopeful ending for the Republic, and I assume by revealing the truth on national TV, Myers is assassinating the character built by the Governor, destroying his chances in the election and salvaging his own conscience, before it turns dark and cynical.

In the end, The Ides of March is a movie that will likely only appease the most die-hard political pundits in the crowd. For most everyone else, an hour and a half watching people discuss the nature of modern American politics will probably be as fun and insightful as a night spent watching C-SPAN.

Stephen had looked up to Morris as one would a superhero. He thought Morris was above everything, was greater, was the leader of leaders. And yet Morris is flawed enough, stupid enough, so fucking cliche as to sleep with the hot intern. Stephen didn't care about his career anymore. He wanted revenge. For Molly. For himself. In order to achieve this, he had to have the right position. If he had remained fired and had spilled the beans, the story would have died. "He's a disgruntled ex-employee. He's mad that he was fired. Governor Morris would never do such a thing, that's hogwash." So he plays politics. He has Morris anoint him Campaign Manager. And then he stabs Morris in the back.