<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=gb2312"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"><!--[if !mso]><style>v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style><![endif]--><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
text-align:justify;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p.MsoAcetate, li.MsoAcetate, div.MsoAcetate
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Balloon Text Char";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
text-align:justify;
font-size:8.0pt;
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:windowtext;}
span.BalloonTextChar
{mso-style-name:"Balloon Text Char";
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Balloon Text";
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
.MsoPapDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
text-align:justify;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#1F497D'>Another review, this time from Glen Greenwald. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#1F497D'>I am now even more compelled to see the film.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#1F497D'>David J.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>※ Moore could have easily made a film that just channeled and fueled standard anti-Trump fears and animus and 每 like the others who are doing that 每 made lots of money, been widely hailed, and won lots of accolades. He chose instead to dig deeper, to be more honest, to take the harder route, and deserves real credit for that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>He did that, it seems clear, because he knows that the only way to move forward is not just to reject right-wing demagoguery but also the sham that masquerades as its #Resistance. As Moore himself put it: ※sometimes it takes a Donald Trump to get us to realize that we have to get rid of the whole rotten system that gave us Trump.§<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>That＊s exactly the truth that the guardians of that ※whole rotten system§ want most to conceal. Moore＊s film is devoted, at its core, to unearthing it. That＊s why, despite its flaws, some of them serious ones, the film deserves wide attention and discussion among everyone across the political spectrum. ※<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><b><span style='font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/michael-moores-fahrenheit-119-aims-not-at-trump-but-at-those-who-created-the-conditions-that-led-to-his-rise/"><span style='color:blue'>Michael Moore＊s ※Fahrenheit 11/9§ Aims Not at Trump But at Those Who Created the Conditions That Led to His Rise</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="https://theintercept.com/staff/glenn-greenwald/"><span style='color:blue'>Glenn Greenwald</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>September 21 2018, 12:08 p.m.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><img border=0 width=1023 height=667 id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image001.jpg@01D453F0.1BCAD0C0" alt="2017 AP YEAR END PHOTOS - Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts, as Melania Trump and his family looks on during the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)"></span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts during the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., on Jan. 20, 2017.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><u><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>※Fahrenheit 11/9,§</span></u><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'> the title of Michael Moore＊s new film that opens today in theaters, is an obvious play on the title of his wildly profitable Bush-era ※Fahrenheit 9/11,§ but also a reference to the date of Donald J. Trump＊s 2016 election victory. Despite that, Trump himself is a secondary figure in Moore＊s film, which is far more focused on the far more relevant and interesting questions of what 每 and, critically, who 每 created the climate in which someone like Trump could occupy the Oval Office.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>For that reason alone, Moore＊s film is highly worthwhile regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum. The single most significant defect in U.S. political discourse is the monomaniacal focus on Trump himself, as though he is the cause 每 rather than the by-product and symptom 每 of decades-old systemic American pathologies.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Personalizing and isolating Trump as the principal, even singular, source of political evil is obfuscating and thus deceitful. By effect, if not design, it distracts the population＊s attention away from the actual architects of their plight.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>This now-dominant framework misleads people into the nationalistic myth 每 at once both frightening and comforting 每 that prior to 2016＊s ※Fahrenheit 11/9,§ the U.S., though quite imperfect and saddled with ※flaws,§ was nonetheless a fundamentally kind, benevolent, equitable and healthy democracy, one which, by aspiration if not always in action, welcomed immigrants, embraced diversity, strove for greater economic equality, sought to defend human rights against assaults by the world＊s tyrants, was governed by the sturdy rule of law rather than the arbitrary whims of rulers, elected fundamentally decent even if ideologically misguided men to the White House, and gradually expanded rather than sadistically abolished opportunity for the world＊s neediest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>But suddenly, teaches this fairy tale as ominous music plays in the background, a villain unlike any we had previously known invaded our idyllic land, vandalized our sacred public spaces, degraded our admired halls of power, threatened our collective values. It was only upon Trump＊s assumption of power that the nation＊s noble aspirations were repudiated in favor of a far darker and more sinister vision, one wholly alien to ※Who We Are§: a profoundly ※un-American§ tapestry of plutocracy, kleptocracy, autocracy, xenophobia, racism, elite lawlessness, indifference and even aggressive cruelty toward the most vulnerable and marginalized.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>This myth is not just false but self-evidently so. Yet it persists, and thrives, because it serves so many powerful interests at once. Most importantly, it exonerates, empowers, and elevates the pre-Trump ruling class, now recast as heroic leaders of the #Resistance and nostalgic symbols of America＊s pre-11/9 Goodness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><img border=0 width=1024 height=754 id="Picture_x0020_3" src="cid:image002.jpg@01D453F0.1BCAD0C0" alt=ellen-instagram-1537551468></span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Screenshot: The Intercept<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The lie-fueled destruction of Vietnam and Iraq, the worldwide torture regime, the 2008 financial collapse and subsequent bailout and protection of those responsible for it, the foreign kidnapping and domestic rounding up of Muslims, the record-setting Obama-era deportations and whistleblower prosecutions, the obliteration of Yemen and Libya, the embrace of Mubarak, Sisi, and Saudi despots, the years of bipartisan subservience to Wall Street at everyone else＊s expense, the full-scale immunity vested on all the elites responsible for all those crimes 每 it＊s all blissfully washed away as we unite to commemorate the core decency of America as George Bush gently hands a piece of candy to Michelle Obama at the funeral of the American War Hero and Trump-opponent-in-words John S. McCain, or as hundreds of thousands of us re-tweet the latest bromide of Americana from the leaders of America＊s most insidious security state, spy and police agencies.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Beyond nationalistic myth-building, there are substantial commercial, political and reputational benefits to this Trump-centered mythology. An obsessive fixation on Trump has single-handedly <a href="https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/august-2018-ratings-msnbc-is-posting-year-over-year-total-audience-growth/375241"><span style='color:blue'>saved an entire partisan cable news network</span></a> from extinction, converting its once ratings-starved, close-to-being-fired prime-time hosts into major celebrities with <a href="https://www.eonline.com/de/photos/13181/top-tv-star-salaries-you-won-t-believe-who-s-no-1/402466"><span style='color:blue'>contracts so obscenely lucrative</span></a> as to produce envy among most professional athletes or Hollywood stars.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Resistance grifters exploit fears of Trump to build massive social media followings that are <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/5973/meet-the-resistance-grifters?zd=1&zi=qxa5ebqf"><span style='color:blue'>easily converted into profit</span></a> from well-meaning, manipulated dupes. One rickety, unhinged, rant-filled, speculation-driven Trump book after the next dominates the best-seller lists, enriching charlatans and publishing companies alike: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079RB155J/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1"><span style='color:blue'>the more conspiratorial, the better</span></a>. Anti-Trump mania is big business, and 每 as the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/18/bob-woodwards-fear-hits-record-sales-at-simon--schuster-in-1st-week.html"><span style='color:blue'>record-shattering first-week sales</span></a> of Bob Woodward＊s new Trump book demonstrates 每 there is no end in sight to this profiteering.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>All of this is historical revisionism in its crudest and most malevolent form. It＊s intended to heap most if not all blame for systemic, enduring, entrenched suffering across the country onto a single personality who wielded no political power until 18 months ago. In doing so, it averts everyone＊s eyes away from the real culprits: the governors, both titled and untitled, of the establishment ruling class, who for decades have exercised largely unchecked power 每 immune even from election outcomes 每 and, in many senses, still do.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The message is as clear as the beneficial outcomes: <i>Just look only at Trump. Keep your eyes fixated on him. Direct all your suffering, deprivations, fears, resentments, anger and energy to him and him alone. By doing so, you＊ll forget about us 每 except that we＊ll join you in your Trump-centered crusade, even lead you in it, and you will learn again to love us: the real authors of your misery.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><u><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The overriding value of ※Fahrenheit 11/9∪</span></u><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'> is that it avoids 每 in fact, aggressively rejects 每 this ahistorical manipulation. Moore dutifully devotes a few minutes at the start of his film to Trump＊s rise, and then asks the question that dominates the rest of it, the one the political and media establishment has steadfastly avoided examining except in the most superficial and self-protective ways: ※how the fuck did this happen§?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Knowing that no political work can be commercially successful on a large-scale without affirming Resistance clich谷s, Moore dutifully complies, but only with the most cursory and fleeting gestures: literally 5 seconds in the film are devoted to assigning blame for Hillary＊s loss to Putin and Comey. With that duty discharged, he sets his sights on his real targets: the U.S. political establishment that is ensconced within both parties, along with the financial elites who own and control both of them for their own ends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Moore quickly escapes the dreary and misleading ※Democrat v. GOP§ framework that dominates cable news by trumpeting ※the largest political party in America§: those who refuse to vote. He uses this powerful graphic to tell that story:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><a href="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/09/moore1-1537440679.png?auto=compress,format&q=90"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue;text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=964 height=440 id="Picture_x0020_4" src="cid:image003.jpg@01D453F0.1BCAD0C0" alt="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/09/moore1-1537440679.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90"></span></a><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>It＊s remarkable how little attention is paid to non-voters given that, as Moore rightly notes, they form America＊s largest political faction. Part of why they＊re ignored is moralism: those who don＊t vote deserve no attention as they have only themselves to blame.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>But the much more consequential factor is the danger for both parties from delving too deeply into this subject. After all, voter apathy arises when people conclude that their votes don＊t change their lives, that election outcomes improve nothing, that the small amount of time spent waiting in line at a voting booth isn＊t worth the effort because of how inconsequential it is. What greater indictment of the two political parties can one imagine than that?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>One of the most illuminating pieces of reporting about the 2016 election is also, not coincidentally, one of the most ignored: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/many-in-milwaukee-neighborhood-didnt-vote-and-dont-regret-it.html"><span style='color:blue'>interviews by the New York Times</span></a> with white and African-American working-class voters in Milwaukee who refused to vote and 每 even knowing that Trump won Wisconsin, and thus the presidency, largely because of their decision 每 don＊t regret it. ※Milwaukee is tired. Both of them were terrible. They never do anything for us anyway,§ the article quotes an African-American barber, justifying his decision not to vote in 2016 after voting twice for Obama.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Moore develops the same point, even more powerfully, about his home state of Michigan, which 每 like Wisconsin 每 Trump also won after Obama won it twice. In one of the most powerful and devastating passages from the film 每 indeed, of any political documentary seen in quite some time 每 ※Fahrenheit 11/9∪ takes us in real-time through the indescribably shameful water crisis of Flint, the criminal cover-up of it by GOP Governor Rick Snyder, and the physical and emotional suffering endured by its poor, voiceless, and overwhelmingly black residents.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>After many months of abuse, of being lied to, of being poisoned, Flint residents, in May, 2016, finally had a cause for hope: President Obama announced that he would visit Flint to address the water crisis. As Air Force One majestically lands, Flint residents rejoice, believing that genuine concern, political salvation, and drinkable water had finally arrived.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Exactly the opposite happened. Obama delivered a speech in which he not only appeared to minimize, but to mock, concerns of Flint residents over the lead levels in their water, capped off by a grotesquely cynical political stunt where he flamboyantly insisted on having a glass of filtered tap water that he then pretended to drink, but in fact only used to wet his lips, ingesting none of it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><img border=0 width=1024 height=729 id="Picture_x0020_5" src="cid:image004.jpg@01D453F0.1BCAD0C0" alt="President Barack Obama drinks water as he speaks at Flint Northwestern High School in Flint, Mich., Wednesday, May 4, 2016, about the ongoing water crisis. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)"></span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>President Barack Obama appears to drink water as he speaks at Flint Northwestern High School in Flint, Mich., Wednesday, May 4, 2016, about the ongoing water crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>A friendly meeting with Gov. Snyder after that 每 during which Obama repeated the same water stunt 每 provided the GOP state administration in Michigan with ample Obama quotes to exploit to prove the problem was fixed, and for Flint residents, it was the final insult. ※When President Obama came here,§ an African-American community leader in Flint tells Moore, ※he was my President. When he left, he wasn＊t.§<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Like the unregretful non-voters of Milwaukee, the collapsed hope Obama left in his wake as he departed Flint becomes a key metaphor in Moore＊s hands for understanding Trump＊s rise. Moore suggests to John Podesta, who seems to agree, that Hillary lost Michigan because, as in Wisconsin, voters, in part after seeing what Obama did in Flint, concluded it was no longer worth voting. As Moore narrates:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The autocrat, the strongman, only succeeds when the vast majority of the population decides they＊ve seen enough, and give up. . . . . The worst thing that President Obama did was pave the way for Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump did not just fall from the sky. The road to him was decades in the making.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The long, painful, extraordinarily compelling journey through Flint is accompanied by an equally illuminating immersion in West Virginia, one that brings into further vivid clarity the misery, deprivation, and repression that drove so many people 每 for good reason 每 away from the political establishment and into the arms of anyone promising to destroy it: from the 2008 version of Obama to Bernie Sanders to Jill Stein to Donald Trump to abstaining entirely from voting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>We meet the teachers who led the inspiring state-wide strike, some of whom are paid so little that they are on food stamps. We hear how their own union leaders tried (and failed) first to prevent the strike, then prematurely tried (and failed) to end it with trivial concessions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>We meet Richard Ojeda, an Iraq and Afghanistan War veteran, Democratic State Senator, and current Congressional candidate, who tells Moore: ※Our town is dying. One out of every four homes is in a dilapidated state . . . . I can take you five minutes from here and show you where our kids have it worse than the kids I saw in Iraq and Afghanistan.§ Needless to say, all of that began and took root long before Donald Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator in 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>To Moore＊s credit, virtually no powerful U.S. factions escape indictment in ※Fahrenheit 11/9.§ The villains of Flint and West Virginia are two Republican governors. But their accomplices, every step of the way, are Democrats. This, Moore ultimately argues, is precisely why people had lost faith in the ability of elections generally, and the Democratic Party specifically, to improve their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>And in stark and impressive contrast to the endless intra-Democrat war over the primacy of race versus class, Moore adeptly demonstrates that the overwhelmingly African-American population of Flint and the largely white impoverished West Virginians have far more in common than they have differences: from the methods of their repression to those responsible for it. ※Fahrenheit 11/9∪ does not shy away from, but unflinchingly confronts, the questions of race and class in America and ultimately concludes 每 and proves 每 that they are inextricably intertwined, that a discussion of (and solution to) one is impossible without a discussion of (and solution to) the other.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>No examination of voter apathy and the perceived irrelevance of elections would be complete without an ample study of the 2016 Democratic Party primary process that led to Hillary Clinton＊s ultimately doomed nomination. And this is another area where Moore excels. Focusing on one little-known but amazing fact 每 that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/primaries/west-virginia"><span style='color:blue'>Bernie Sanders </span></a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/primaries/west-virginia"><span style='color:blue'>won</span></a><i> all 55 counties over Clinton in the West Virginia primary, beating her by 16 points in a state where she crushed Obama in 2008, yet, at the Democratic Convention, somehow <a href="https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/politics/wv-delegation-at-dnc-votes-for-clinton-over-sanders-by/article_80b8e3a5-5ce3-5092-95d0-a41cd1875707.html"><span style='color:blue'>ended up with fewer delegates than she received</span></a></i> 每 Moore interviews a Sanders supporter in West Virginia about the message this bizarre discrepancy sent.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Moore asks: ※This just tells people to stay home?§ The voter replies: ※I think so.§ Moore offers his own conclusion through narration: ※When the people are continually told that their vote doesn＊t count, that it doesn＊t matter, and they end up believing that, the loss of faith in our democracy becomes our deathknell.§<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>With all of this harrowing and depressing evidence compiled, it becomes easier and easier to understand why Americans are either receptive to <i>anyone</i> vowing to dismantle rather than uphold the system they have rightly come to despise, or just abstain altogether. And it becomes even easier to understand why the guardians of that system view Trump as the most valuable weapon they could have ever imagined wielding: one that allows them to direct everyone＊s attention away from the systemic damage they have wrought for decades.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><u><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Broadly speaking,</span></u><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'> there are three kinds of political films. There are those whose filmmaker fully shares your political outlook, mentality and ideology, and thus produces a film that, in each scene, validates and strengthens your views. There are those by filmmakers whose politics are so anathema to yours that you find no value in the film and are only repelled by it. Then there are those that do a combination of all those things, causing you to love parts, hate other parts, and feel unsure about the rest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Without doubt, ※Fahrenheit 11/9∪ falls into the latter category. It＊s literally impossible to imagine someone who would love, or hate, all of the scenes and messages of this film.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Indeed, for all the praise I just heaped on it, there were several parts I found banal, meandering, misguided and, in one case, downright loathsome: a lurid, pointless, reckless, and deeply offensive digression into the long-standing, adolescent #Resistance theme that Trump wants to have sex with, if he has not in fact already had sex with, his own daughter, Ivanka. What makes the inclusion of this trash all the more tragic is that it comes very near the beginning of the film, and thus will almost certainly repel 每 for good reasons 每 large numbers of people, including more reluctant and open-minded Trump supporters, who would be otherwise quite receptive to the important parts of the film that constitute its crux.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Then there is the last 20 minutes, devoted to a direct comparison between Trump and Hitler. I am not someone who opposes the use of Nazism as a window for understanding contemporary political developments. To the contrary, I＊ve <a href="https://www.salon.com/2010/07/01/godwin/"><span style='color:blue'>written previously</span></a> about how anti-intellectual and dangerous is the now-standard internet decree (inaccurately referred to as Godwin＊s Law) that Nazi comparisons are and should be off-limits.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>As the Nuremberg prosecutors (one of whom appears in the film) themselves pointed out during the post-war trial of Nazis: those tribunals were not primarily about punishing war criminals but about establishing principles to prevent future occurrences. There are real and substantive lessons to be drawn from the rise of Hitler when it comes to understanding the ascension of contemporary global movements of authoritarianism, and this last part of ※Fahrenheit 11/9∪ features some of those in a reasonably responsible and informative manner.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Ultimately, though, this last part of the film is marred by cheap and manipulative stunts, the worst of which is combining video of a Hitler speech overlaid with audio of a Trump speech, with no real effort made to justify this equation. Comparing any political figure to someone who oversaw the genocide of millions of human beings requires great care, sensitivity, and intellectual sophistication, and there is sadly little of that in Moore＊s invocation (which at times feels like exploitation) of Nazism.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>There are, without doubt, people who will most love the exact parts of the film I most disliked. And those same people will likely hate many of the parts I found most compelling. But that＊s precisely why Moore＊s film is so worth your time no matter your ideology, so worth enduring even the parts that you will find disagreeable or even infuriating.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Because 每 in contrast to the endless armies of cable news hosts, Twitter pundits, #Resistance grifters, and party operatives, all of whom are vested due to self-interest in perpetuating the same deceitful, simple-minded and obfuscating narrative 每 Moore, for most of this film, is at least trying. And what he＊s trying is of unparalleled importance: not to take the cheap route of exclusively denouncing Trump but to take the more complicated, challenging, and productive route of understanding who and what created the climate in which Trump could thrive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Embedded in the instruction of those who want to you focus exclusively on Trump is an insidious and toxic message: namely, removing Trump will cure, or at least mitigate, the acute threats he poses. That is a fraud, and Moore knows it. Unless and until the roots of these pathologies are identified and addressed, we are certain to have more Trumps: in fact, more effective and more dangerous Trumps, along with more potent Dutertes, and more Brexits, and more Bolsonaros and more LePens.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Moore could have easily made a film that just channeled and fueled standard anti-Trump fears and animus and 每 like the others who are doing that 每 made lots of money, been widely hailed, and won lots of accolades. He chose instead to dig deeper, to be more honest, to take the harder route, and deserves real credit for that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>He did that, it seems clear, because he knows that the only way to move forward is not just to reject right-wing demagoguery but also the sham that masquerades as its #Resistance. As Moore himself put it: ※sometimes it takes a Donald Trump to get us to realize that we have to get rid of the whole rotten system that gave us Trump.§<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>That＊s exactly the truth that the guardians of that ※whole rotten system§ want most to conceal. Moore＊s film is devoted, at its core, to unearthing it. That＊s why, despite its flaws, some of them serious ones, the film deserves wide attention and discussion among everyone across the political spectrum.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>