My subscription to Amazon Prime gives me access to Prime Videos. Since the last time I looked, they seem to have grown their library. Yesterday I watched Fahrenheit 11/9, Michael Moore’s look at why Trump was elected.
His answer: political leadership has privileged the needs of business over the needs of the people. Trump said he would change that, and he was believed.
To develop that message, Moore explores in more detail than might be necessary the water issue in Flint Michigan and the Teachers’ strike in West Virginia. His documentary is forceful, to the point of appearing one-sided. Yet, for anyone who has travelled through those states, and have witnessed the decline into poverty, they recognise that there is a problem. Regardless of the root cause, the failure of political leadership to respond is their sin. In response, people have taken action and voted them out. Unfortunately, what was elected was a vile, and crude man, at least as corrupt as his predecessors.
The message of hope that Moore offers, at the end, is that the election of this turd has motivated a new generation of people to participate in the system. The recent US election results suggest this process might be underway.
But it is the message of hope — that trope that is embedded in the propaganda called the American Dream that motivates the American lower and middle classes to tow the line — that subverts the message of this work. It’s like the image of Obama drinking Flint Michigan water.
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