There’s much to process, mourn, dissect and finally accept in this written, directed and produced documentary from the cage-rattling Michael Moore.
The film opens in 2016 to the roaring hype and hope of Fight Song. This is Hilary Clinton’s campaign for President. This is a place where amateurs and professionals have already ‘called’ the elections. She’s a slam dunk. Even Jay Z and Beyonce think so. The suffragettes and young women, old ladies and Susan B Anthony grave-huggers are ecstatic. This is the first female President…that at on the morning of November 9th…wasn’t.
And, so we have 11/9. A brilliant title. Just swap the numbers and you have the worst other day of American life…9/11.
While not Moore’s best, this is nonetheless an urgent and necessary film about why we’re all at fault for President Trump’s election, why our democracy failed, and why we’re basically to blame for the mess we’re in. It’s also analyzes at what point we got here? Was it when NBC fired Trump from The Apprentice and he became the media cash cow? Just ask Les Moonves about ratings…not news value.
But it’s ironically NOT a film about Trump…so don’t expect two hours of Presidential bashing. It’s a film that turns the mirror on us.
Trump loves the strong man, the dictator, and certainly exhibiting zero decorum when he says whatever he wants….bashing Obama’s birth certificate, blaming the Central Park 5, adds in doses of racism and misogyny with his Miss America Contest; heck, on national television it was ‘treason’ when he bowed to Putin at Helsinki. Yes, according to Moore, Trump knows what any good Authoritarian and Fascist is supposed to do at the expense of personal freedoms: discredit everyone…especially the press.
Add his antics of pre-President to the antics of President, and we learn that Trump’s people believe in him more than they believe in the truth. Sigh.
As Moore’s attack angles begin to unfold, his film takes a shift in tone and focuses in on his beloved Flint, Michigan, a.k.a. the lead-in-its-water town. Flint used to get its water from Lake Huron before it was switched to Flint River. The politicians and namely Governor Snyder (Trump’s separated-at-birth brother) share a “slow-mo ethnic cleansing.” They toast their glasses of H2o. Greed = money + corruption, that led to babies with lead brains and the community literally dying.
There’s an entire explanation on why Flint built a secondary pipeline to get clean water to General Motors because the ‘bad’ water is corroding their cars, but still no clean water for the tax-paying people. You might ask “well why don’t the people of Flint just move?” Answer: They can’t move if no one will buy their houses. Would you live there? Hell, no.
Next Moore shifts to West Virginia; to a soldier back home from the military, taking matters into his own hands by running for office. He thinks the kids here have it worse than the kids in Iraq. He reminds us of the Opioid epidemic, the homeless, and their state’s teachers ranking 48 out of 50. We watch the community take matters into their own hands. We watch them storm the media, take City Hall, go to Washington, whatever it takes to be heard.
The message is stand up, speak out, kneel on the field, rally. F*&K hope! Take action! Thoughts and prayers aren’t going to cure or change things. Just ask the Stoneman Douglas kids of Parkland Florida who – from the steps of Washington – called out the NRA for giving $30,000,000 to Trump’s campaign. Their mantra “We call Bullshit!” If teenagers can organize the largest single day of protests ever, what the hell are our adults doing?
Apparently we love our guns more than our kids.
Moore reminds us – with a nauseating and disturbing microscope that at times gets exhausting but necessary – what we shamefully already know. You see, when fed-up voters stay home, we lose. You can’t call this a democracy if the person winning the vote doesn’t win. We learn that it’s not the Republicans or the Democrats but the non-voters that are the largest party.
It turns out Putin – barely in the film – is the least of America’s problems. America is America’s problem. 3 ½ tiaras