This might be Michael Moore's best documentary, of the ones that I've seen, which consists of Bowling for Columbine; Fahrenheit 9/11; Capitalism: A love story, and, possibly, Roger & me (which I'm not certain that I have seen). It combines many of Moore's subjects from his previous documentaries, such as capitalism, gun culture, the working class and the elites. In it, he seeks to explain how Donald Trump became the president of the United States of America and to hypothesise where his country may be heading as a consequence of this.
Early on in the film, I was amused by Moore's use of music to accompany footage of Donald Trump, from memory. It made me wonder if he was using music from the horror film "The omen", to accompany a central character in that story, Damien Thorn. The closing credits settled that question for me...yes, it was a direct use of that music and not something chosen for its similarity to it. In other hands, such choices might come across as earnest, or transparently polemical. In Moore's case, I'll just assume that he is only (half) joking by making these kinds of choices.
At around the same time in the documentary, Moore makes the startling claim that Donald Trump's run for president was caused by pop singer Gwen Stefani. Initially I thought that Moore was deliberately creating fake news to parody the incessant stream of lies told by Trump, but no, Moore does go on to justify his claim, which was made informative as a result.
Obviously Moore is selective in what footage he uses of Donald Trump in order to make his case. It seemed to me that he was presenting Donald's relationship with his daughter, Ivanka, in a negative light, making him seem very sleazy...but then again, it's not as if Moore was twisting the truth to show Donald in a bad light...Donald really has said things about his daughter that normal parents wouldn't say, let alone think.
When it comes to Donald's political activities, Moore's approach reminded me of a Woody Allen film that I really liked, "Crimes and misdemeanours". His "compare and contrast" analysis is extreme, but perhaps justified. Donald's own words make him an easy target for this kind of analysis too. As I mentioned before, I suspect that Moore's satire is intended only half-jokingly. With Donald Trump, his seemingly half-jokingly delivered comments about not wanting journalists killed are, well, perhaps an earnest expression of the opposite? Even ignoring these kinds of comments by Trump, numerous other comments are shown where he is nakedly rabble-rousing, and encouraging his supporters to assault protesters at his rally. In one case such a protester is spat on and possibly punched too...at least some protesters are punched...I'm just not sure if they were also spat on at the same time.
If I had one quibble with Moore's film, it's that his focus on the tragedy of his home city of Flint's situation with drinking water seems less than germane here. Perhaps there was an entire film on this subject in Moore. In any case, this focus on Flint does amply illustrate the banality of evil which resides in its state's Governor, Rick Snyder. The mind boggles at how this evil, greedy man was never charged multiple counts of manslaughter or whatever the appropriate criminal charge is. He epitomises how Americans aspire to great wealth and how such elites are above the law, due to their money and connections and power. This particular section of the documentary does demonstrate the dynamics at play in America, as far the working class, African Americans and rich, white people go. Snyder and his peers embody the entitlement that the elites feel they have and how they have right to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor or 'coloured' people. In an entirely self-serving manner, they used their wealth in order to enrich their fellow elite, particularly donors.
A strength of the documentary is its analysis of America's so-called 'democracy'. It's revealed to be a sham and an illusion. I know from other sources that the Republican Party engages in voter suppression and the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries in order to subvert the will of the majority. Another criticism of mine on this documentary would be that Moore doesn't really cover issues like this here, although, perhaps, he did go in depth on such a topic in something like "Fahrenheit 9/11", if I recall. In any case, what did startle me was that not only does the Republican Party seek to disenfranchise the majority of the people that could unseat them ('coloured' people, for instance), but that the Democratic Party does too. For instance, the systematic way in which the Democratic Party establishment rigged the presidential candidate race to allow Hillary Clinton to win, when Bernie Sanders might have better represented Democrat voters and in fact won some state primaries, but was robbed of those victories by the Democratic Party establishment. This information is no doubt not new, but Moore does us a service to remind us of these facts. I took at face value Moore's claims that Sanders was robbed of some victories in some states by such crookedness but, on reflection, I'm not sure that there isn't another explanation when he charges certain Democrats as being liars in order to ensure that Hillary won a state's primary. In other words, perhaps such outcomes are allowable by the flawed process of electing a presidential candidate? Moore does mention 'superdelegates' in this regard, but I'm too ignorant of the US system to evaluate his analysis on the situation.
Being Australian, I was not aware that the American 'electoral college' system of choosing presidential candidates was a concession to the American states which used to practice slavery. As such, it is geared to engineering results which preclude potentially more popular (populist) candidates from winning, ones which do not serve the interests of the elites etc.
Like Donald Trump, Moore is also critical of the news media. In a pointed comparison, he shows some New York Times' headlines and articles from the era when Adolf Hitler was elected to parliament in Germany. These articles informed their readers that Hitler's pronouncements on Jews shouldn't be taken literally...that it was merely populist posturing on his part. In other words, the New York Times was advising its readers to ignore what Adolf Hitler was actually saying and proposing and to take their word for it, as far as what Hitler 'really' was like.
One angle on the news media which Moore doesn't consider is that it's probably mostly populated by the middle class. That would explain the journalists' antipathy towards the needs and aspirations of the poor and working class. It would explain the demonising of these people, or the attempts to diminish or belittle their political actions. This is all to say that the bourgeois journalists working for the mainstream media will try and convince people that working towards improving the lot of the working class and the poor is bad for the nation.
Having been burnt by the use of opinion polls to predict the outcome of the 'Brexit' referendum and the likelihood of Trump being elected president (cough, ahem), I was a bit wary about Moore's use of opinion polls to characterise the 'real America', i.e. that real Americans are liberal in very many ways. Can we credulously believe in polls anymore?
It seems ironic that Moore places his faith in the Democratic Party to express such liberal values. Specifically, he shows many new Democratic Party candidates who are clearing the decks of 'establishment' candidates. The Democratic Party establishment is obviously in a cosy duopoly with the Republican Party, with which it shares corporate teats of election donations. If the Democratic Party establishment could rig primaries to ensure a Hillary Clinton victory over the more representative Bernie Sanders, then one wonders if they will ever shake their dog in the manger ways.
Returning to the subject of Flint, Michigan, again, it was revelatory (to me) how President Barack Obama created his own fake news there, when he pretended to drink that city's water, in a publicity stunt which supported that moral black hole of a man, Governor Rick Snyder, a snake, if ever there was one. Moore also stated that Obama received more 'donations' from that immoral, ethical vacuum of a bank, Goldman Sachs. All this serving to reinforce how the Democratic Party is, in effect, nothing more than a competing wing of the Republican Party for power and serves to only provide an illusion of democracy in America. Both parties serve the elite, not the vast majority of Americans.
Lastly, I was unaware of some military drills in Flint. The people of Flint were not notified of these drills and they must surely have been terrified as a result. It did make me wonder if that is a portent of what America has in store. I wish that I recall the intellectual who said something along the lines that capitalism is a more natural bedfellow to fascism than to democracy. Perhaps the military, as a the right arm of the American elite are demonstrating what the majority of Americans can expect if they assert their rights over that of the elites too forcefully? With regards to guns, I have long taken the view that that being the case, perhaps it might not be so crazy for many Americans to own guns. In other words, if the US governments acts purely in the interests of a tiny elite and they enforce that relationship with the threat of violence, then, perhaps, the overwhelming majority of Americans might consider it prudent to arm themselves, in case their rights and living conditions are trampled by the less than 1 per cent of the population who oppress them. However, Moore puts a different interpretation on this situation and makes me question the wisdom of my wish. In Moore's view, the minority of people in the US which own guns would, in such a situation, be a threat to the majority of people
Early on in the film, I was amused by Moore's use of music to accompany footage of Donald Trump, from memory. It made me wonder if he was using music from the horror film "The omen", to accompany a central character in that story, Damien Thorn. The closing credits settled that question for me...yes, it was a direct use of that music and not something chosen for its similarity to it. In other hands, such choices might come across as earnest, or transparently polemical. In Moore's case, I'll just assume that he is only (half) joking by making these kinds of choices.
At around the same time in the documentary, Moore makes the startling claim that Donald Trump's run for president was caused by pop singer Gwen Stefani. Initially I thought that Moore was deliberately creating fake news to parody the incessant stream of lies told by Trump, but no, Moore does go on to justify his claim, which was made informative as a result.
Obviously Moore is selective in what footage he uses of Donald Trump in order to make his case. It seemed to me that he was presenting Donald's relationship with his daughter, Ivanka, in a negative light, making him seem very sleazy...but then again, it's not as if Moore was twisting the truth to show Donald in a bad light...Donald really has said things about his daughter that normal parents wouldn't say, let alone think.
When it comes to Donald's political activities, Moore's approach reminded me of a Woody Allen film that I really liked, "Crimes and misdemeanours". His "compare and contrast" analysis is extreme, but perhaps justified. Donald's own words make him an easy target for this kind of analysis too. As I mentioned before, I suspect that Moore's satire is intended only half-jokingly. With Donald Trump, his seemingly half-jokingly delivered comments about not wanting journalists killed are, well, perhaps an earnest expression of the opposite? Even ignoring these kinds of comments by Trump, numerous other comments are shown where he is nakedly rabble-rousing, and encouraging his supporters to assault protesters at his rally. In one case such a protester is spat on and possibly punched too...at least some protesters are punched...I'm just not sure if they were also spat on at the same time.
If I had one quibble with Moore's film, it's that his focus on the tragedy of his home city of Flint's situation with drinking water seems less than germane here. Perhaps there was an entire film on this subject in Moore. In any case, this focus on Flint does amply illustrate the banality of evil which resides in its state's Governor, Rick Snyder. The mind boggles at how this evil, greedy man was never charged multiple counts of manslaughter or whatever the appropriate criminal charge is. He epitomises how Americans aspire to great wealth and how such elites are above the law, due to their money and connections and power. This particular section of the documentary does demonstrate the dynamics at play in America, as far the working class, African Americans and rich, white people go. Snyder and his peers embody the entitlement that the elites feel they have and how they have right to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor or 'coloured' people. In an entirely self-serving manner, they used their wealth in order to enrich their fellow elite, particularly donors.
A strength of the documentary is its analysis of America's so-called 'democracy'. It's revealed to be a sham and an illusion. I know from other sources that the Republican Party engages in voter suppression and the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries in order to subvert the will of the majority. Another criticism of mine on this documentary would be that Moore doesn't really cover issues like this here, although, perhaps, he did go in depth on such a topic in something like "Fahrenheit 9/11", if I recall. In any case, what did startle me was that not only does the Republican Party seek to disenfranchise the majority of the people that could unseat them ('coloured' people, for instance), but that the Democratic Party does too. For instance, the systematic way in which the Democratic Party establishment rigged the presidential candidate race to allow Hillary Clinton to win, when Bernie Sanders might have better represented Democrat voters and in fact won some state primaries, but was robbed of those victories by the Democratic Party establishment. This information is no doubt not new, but Moore does us a service to remind us of these facts. I took at face value Moore's claims that Sanders was robbed of some victories in some states by such crookedness but, on reflection, I'm not sure that there isn't another explanation when he charges certain Democrats as being liars in order to ensure that Hillary won a state's primary. In other words, perhaps such outcomes are allowable by the flawed process of electing a presidential candidate? Moore does mention 'superdelegates' in this regard, but I'm too ignorant of the US system to evaluate his analysis on the situation.
Being Australian, I was not aware that the American 'electoral college' system of choosing presidential candidates was a concession to the American states which used to practice slavery. As such, it is geared to engineering results which preclude potentially more popular (populist) candidates from winning, ones which do not serve the interests of the elites etc.
Like Donald Trump, Moore is also critical of the news media. In a pointed comparison, he shows some New York Times' headlines and articles from the era when Adolf Hitler was elected to parliament in Germany. These articles informed their readers that Hitler's pronouncements on Jews shouldn't be taken literally...that it was merely populist posturing on his part. In other words, the New York Times was advising its readers to ignore what Adolf Hitler was actually saying and proposing and to take their word for it, as far as what Hitler 'really' was like.
One angle on the news media which Moore doesn't consider is that it's probably mostly populated by the middle class. That would explain the journalists' antipathy towards the needs and aspirations of the poor and working class. It would explain the demonising of these people, or the attempts to diminish or belittle their political actions. This is all to say that the bourgeois journalists working for the mainstream media will try and convince people that working towards improving the lot of the working class and the poor is bad for the nation.
Having been burnt by the use of opinion polls to predict the outcome of the 'Brexit' referendum and the likelihood of Trump being elected president (cough, ahem), I was a bit wary about Moore's use of opinion polls to characterise the 'real America', i.e. that real Americans are liberal in very many ways. Can we credulously believe in polls anymore?
It seems ironic that Moore places his faith in the Democratic Party to express such liberal values. Specifically, he shows many new Democratic Party candidates who are clearing the decks of 'establishment' candidates. The Democratic Party establishment is obviously in a cosy duopoly with the Republican Party, with which it shares corporate teats of election donations. If the Democratic Party establishment could rig primaries to ensure a Hillary Clinton victory over the more representative Bernie Sanders, then one wonders if they will ever shake their dog in the manger ways.
Returning to the subject of Flint, Michigan, again, it was revelatory (to me) how President Barack Obama created his own fake news there, when he pretended to drink that city's water, in a publicity stunt which supported that moral black hole of a man, Governor Rick Snyder, a snake, if ever there was one. Moore also stated that Obama received more 'donations' from that immoral, ethical vacuum of a bank, Goldman Sachs. All this serving to reinforce how the Democratic Party is, in effect, nothing more than a competing wing of the Republican Party for power and serves to only provide an illusion of democracy in America. Both parties serve the elite, not the vast majority of Americans.
Lastly, I was unaware of some military drills in Flint. The people of Flint were not notified of these drills and they must surely have been terrified as a result. It did make me wonder if that is a portent of what America has in store. I wish that I recall the intellectual who said something along the lines that capitalism is a more natural bedfellow to fascism than to democracy. Perhaps the military, as a the right arm of the American elite are demonstrating what the majority of Americans can expect if they assert their rights over that of the elites too forcefully? With regards to guns, I have long taken the view that that being the case, perhaps it might not be so crazy for many Americans to own guns. In other words, if the US governments acts purely in the interests of a tiny elite and they enforce that relationship with the threat of violence, then, perhaps, the overwhelming majority of Americans might consider it prudent to arm themselves, in case their rights and living conditions are trampled by the less than 1 per cent of the population who oppress them. However, Moore puts a different interpretation on this situation and makes me question the wisdom of my wish. In Moore's view, the minority of people in the US which own guns would, in such a situation, be a threat to the majority of people