[Peace-discuss] Fahrenheit 11/9-Filmmaker Michael Moore clings to the Democratic Party

Mon Sep 24 13:43:43 UTC 2018

Fahrenheit 11/9-Filmmaker Michael Moore clings to the Democratic Party

By David Walsh 
21 September 2018

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 <http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/21/fahr-s21.html> Fahrenheit
11/9-Filmmaker Michael Moore clings to the ...

Michael Moore has a long history as a documentary filmmaker (Roger & Me,
Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Capitalism: A Love Story) and a
left-liberal supporter of the Democratic Party. His ...

 <http://www.wsws.org> www.wsws.org

Michael Moore has a long history as a documentary filmmaker (Roger & Me,
Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Capitalism: A Love Story) and a
left-liberal supporter of the Democratic Party.

His new film Fahrenheit 11/9 is an attempt to explain how the election of
Donald Trump-a reactionary, know-nothing billionaire-as president of the
United States was possible and how the American population might extricate
itself from the crisis produced by his coming to power.

If Moore could provide serious and convincing answers to these vexing and
pressing problems, and perhaps indicate a way out of the present situation,
he would be rendering an enormous political and moral service.

Many of the issues he touches upon-the fascistic character of the Trump
White House, the sharp turn to the right by the Democratic Party leadership,
the Flint, Michigan water disaster, the depths of poverty in America, the
epidemic of school shootings, the cruelty of the government's treatment of
immigrants, the opioid crisis, vast social inequality-are strong arguments
for workers to reject the existing economic and political system and adopt a
socialist program and outlook.

However, despite various criticisms of prominent Democrats-among them
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama-and the American liberal establishment,
including the New York Times, Moore urges his viewers to retain-or perhaps
regain-confidence in the Democratic Party and "to save," as he admits, "the
America [i.e., the benevolent American capitalism] we've never had."

http://www.wsws.org/asset/7fae89f1-a725-454c-8e7b-437a651b36eB/image.jpg?ren
dition=image480Donald Trump projected on the Empire State Building in
Fahrenheit 11/9

In interviews, Moore stresses that Fahrenheit 11/9 (a play on the title of
his 2004 film, Fahrenheit 9/11, and the date-November 9, 2016-on which Trump
was declared the winner of the presidential election) is designed to help
obtain votes for the Democrats in the midterm elections in November. He has
told audiences at premieres of the new film that the upcoming vote may be
the "last chance" to oppose Trump. Moore warns of the direst consequences,
"If he isn't stopped, now, in the mid-terms, with impeachment, whatever it
takes ." (Deadline Hollywood). He commented on Real Time with Bill Maher:
"I'm finishing my movie and getting it out before the midterms because I
want millions of people to get to the polls. We're going to bring Trump
down."

The documentary maker advances a pitiful and misnamed handful of
"progressive" Democratic candidates and politicians, including Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez in New York, Rashida Tlaib in Michigan and Richard Ojeda in
West Virginia, as the basis for the false and reactionary contention, in the
words of one of his interviewees, that the "left" should not "give up" on
the Democratic Party, one of America's two big-business parties, but "take
it over."

Fahrenheit 11/9 proceeds in Moore's customary impressionistic and
intellectually careless manner, often praised as non-elitist and "populist."

The film takes note of the smugness of the Clinton camp on election eve in
November 2016 and the certainty of the American media punditry in general
that Trump did not stand a chance of victory. Once the unthinkable happens
and the Republican candidate is declared the winner at 2:29 a.m. on "11/9,"
Moore asks, "How the f--- did this happen?"

With legitimate sarcasm, Moore first suggests it must have been the work of
"the Russians" and the FBI's James Comey (whose October 28 letter announced
that the law enforcement agency was reopening its investigation into Hillary
Clinton's use of a private email server as Secretary of State). By way of a
side note: the little time Fahrenheit 11/9 devotes to the anti-Russian and
#MeToo campaigns, although it vaguely endorses both, indicates that Moore is
well aware of how little interest the broader public has in these upper
middle class obsessions.

After a brief excursion into Trump's quasi-criminal history, his
psychological perversity and the demagogic character of his election
campaign, Moore turns abruptly to the Flint water crisis. He charges
Republican governor Rick Snyder with poisoning the city's citizens through
the decision to draw water in April 2014 from the horribly polluted Flint
River. A native of the area, Moore speaks forcefully about the tragic
situation and interviews Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the pediatrician and public
health advocate, in regard to the dire effect of lead on children.

http://www.wsws.org/asset/548c7ae8-801a-421c-8881-34c98b11b51K/image.jpg?ren
dition=image480Fahrenheit 11/9

Moore, however, presents the water crisis as first and foremost a racial
question, in contradiction to elementary demographics. The city's population
is approximately 57 percent African American and 37 percent white, and the
scenes of protests in Fahrenheit 11/9 reveal crowds of various ethnicities.
The logic of the false claim flows from Moore's general orientation and
participation in identity politics circles, where race and gender, not
social class, are treated as the categories around which society revolves.

Moore sharply condemns Snyder and stages various stunts to embarrass the
governor, for example, hosing the grounds of the latter's mansion with
"Flint water" and briefly attempting to carry out a citizen's arrest of
Snyder at the Michigan state capitol. But the filmmaker omits entirely the
critical role of Democratic Party officials, including State Treasurer Andy
Dillon, the mayor of Flint and members of its City Council, as well as Obama
appointees in the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Later, Moore takes Obama to task for his widely unpopular May 2016
appearance in Flint, where the president sipped from a glass of water and
arrogantly dismissed residents' concern with the comment, "The kids will be
just fine." However, Moore seems primarily concerned with the harmful impact
Obama's performance had on voter turnout in Flint-and thus Democratic Party
prospects-in November of that year.

The filmmaker has his ear close enough to the ground to know that a mass
radicalization is under way in America. He comments that the US, in fact, is
a "leftist country," offering a series of poll figures on various issues to
back up his contention. Fahrenheit 11/9 also takes note of the increased
popularity of socialism. "Why is this not reflected" in the political
process, he asks?

http://www.wsws.org/asset/e4ad5484-156a-4bad-afed-bc6029d3a23A/image.jpg?ren
dition=image480Michael Moore and Jared Kushner in 2007

Moore's response is superficial and sidesteps the central questions. He
takes note of the obvious shift to the right by the Democratic Party
hierarchy. Proceeding farther along this "left" path, he suggests that the
Trump presidency has been "decades in the making" and points to the
right-wing records of both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He argues that
Trump "outflanked" Hillary Clinton to the left on various social issues and
war during the 2016 presidential campaign, but observes that, in any event,
nonvoters, 100 million of them, were the single biggest bloc on Election
Day.

Moore's voiceover continues: "As the Democrats became more like the
Republicans, so did the entire liberal establishment, led by the paper of
record [the New York Times ]: catering to Big Business, minimizing social
movements like Occupy Wall Street and cheerleading every war we got into,
while also trying to dictate elections."

Fahrenheit 11/9 gives far too much credit to the individual figures of Bill
Clinton and Obama, whose administrations not only pushed the Democratic
Party to the right but reflected the shift of the entire political
establishment. The source of the reactionary turn by both big-business
parties lies in the objective crisis of American and global capitalism. The
Republicans and Democrats have tactical differences and divergent political
styles, but the American ruling class is united in its determination to
impose the consequences of the intractable crisis on both its economic
rivals and "allies" abroad and the working population at home.

The implication of Moore's viewpoint is that the Democratic Party's
decades-long repudiation of its reformist-New Deal past is a mere policy
choice carried out by misguided individuals that can be corrected by
pressure exerted from below. This is a reactionary and utopian fantasy.

In his voiceover, Moore argues that Obama "paved the way" for Trump and
offers a partial list of the Obama Administration's "accomplishments": the
locking up of whistle-blowers, the murderous drone program, the deportation
of a record number of immigrants, enhanced surveillance, endless wars, etc.
Why doesn't the filmmaker call a halt right there? Why should any worker or
anyone with a conscience support a party capable of such filthy acts? But
Moore, like the entire liberal-left, can stomach anything by now.

http://www.wsws.org/asset/47635b99-9365-44e8-af05-1a373338345I/image.jpg?ren
dition=image480Donald Trump in Fahrenheit 11/9

Like the man he supported in early 2016, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the
filmmaker denounced Hillary Clinton as a warmonger in the pocket of Wall
Street during the Democratic primaries, then turned around and endorsed
her-helping, in fact, to channel popular anger and frustration behind Trump!
Moore incorporates Sanders' miserable endorsement of Clinton at the
Democratic National Convention into his film, without comment. What comment
could he offer, having chosen the same abject route?

Fahrenheit 11/9 wanders on. It contains images of the important West
Virginia teachers' strike and the March For Our Lives against gun violence
organized by high school students. The scenes of social devastation in West
Virginia are telling and Moore comments, "There are multiple Americas."
However, his interview with Richard Ojeda, Democratic Party politician, West
Virginia State Senator and candidate for Congress, is another sham. Ojeda is
a capitalist politician and former Army officer, who boasts on his website
about the years he spent "fighting the war on terror" and serving "alongside
the bravest men and women I have ever met." Needless to say, Moore doesn't
question Ojeda about the bloody US-led wars the filmmaker claims to oppose.

In a move that has aroused controversy, Moore, toward the end of Fahrenheit
11/9, compares Trump to German fascist dictator Adolf Hitler and implies
that the former may be preparing some fake terrorist incident, along the
lines of the February 1933 Reichstag Fire, that will enable him to proclaim
himself "president for life."

There are great risks in the present situation and Trump's various
references to staying in the White House after his term of office has
expired are not to be taken lightly. American "democracy" is largely in
ruins and the ruling class is moving inexorably in the direction of
authoritarian rule. But this is not Trump's innovation. The malignant levels
of social inequality are incompatible with anything resembling democratic
norms and the ruling elite as a whole is preparing to fight it out
physically with the working class.

http://www.wsws.org/asset/dcd10535-e969-455c-952c-a49850967caC/image.jpg?ren
dition=image480Michael Moore and Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg

But Moore offers no serious insight into the emergence of Nazism, and in
particular the roles performed by the Social Democratic and Stalinist
Communist parties in Germany, who paralyzed the masses and opened the door
for Hitler. To do so would point toward a fundamental truth about the
present American political situation that Moore is either blind to or
consciously seeks to suppress: that the greatest danger to the working class
is represented by its subordination to the Democratic Party, whose
relentlessly pro-corporate and right-wing policies discourage and demoralize
wide layers of the population and propel a portion of them into the arms of
Trump and the ultra-right.

In reality, Moore is raising the specter of Hitlerism principally to
frighten his audience into voting for the Democrats in November, a cheap and
tawdry tactic, which can only cause further confusion and disorientation. As
we have noted before, the filmmaker's unserious and pragmatic approach is
typical "of American 'radical' petty bourgeois thinking, renowned for its
inconsistency, lack of principle and disdain for history."

Fahrenheit 11/9 is Moore's attempt to make a "leftist" film. He does this
under the Republicans. He was essentially silent for 8 years under Obama,
whose victory in November 2008 he greeted in this fashion: "Who among us is
not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A
stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair."

The "hope" now Moore expresses near the conclusion of the work that we might
"get rid of the whole rotten system that gave us Donald Trump" is empty and
meaningless, in so far as he continues to support one of the principalprops
of that "rotten system," the Democratic Party. Whatever occasional insights
and striking imagery it might offer, Fahrenheit 11/9 is false and dishonest
at its core. Those who want to fight and defeat the capitalist system should
accordingly beware.

*	 <https://disqus.com/by/solerso/> Avatar

 <https://disqus.com/by/solerso/> solerso .
<http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/21/fahr-s21.html#comment-4109925341
> 21 hours ago 

Speaking of the democratic party, I noticed yesterday that Hillary Clinton
has (unofficially) begun her re-campaign for the presidency, appearing on
the Rachel Maddow fake-news program to discuss her favorite bourgeois
democrat meme - how "the Russians" stole the election from her (and handed
the office to their stooge Donald Trump) . Look for her to appear on
television more and more often now - to avoid actually seeing it.

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