Fahrenheit 11/9 Movie Review

Okay, so yes, it took me quite some time to actually finish this review of Michael Moore's latest movie, "Fahrenheit 11/9. In fact, I wrote most of it within  24 hours of seeing it, but still had to organize my thoughts. As you will see, this movie actually inspires a lot of thought, because Moore packs it with a lot of information. Frankly, he is doing a much better job of journalism than many of the most respected journalists. You will see some clips of these respected journalists essentially undermining their own credibility in this movie, too, including Thomas Friedman, Charlie Rose, and Matt Lauer, among others.

If you wanted to find out, very specifically, how and why the Flint water crisis happened to begin with, then this movie is a must. I was always a bit unclear on how this came to happen, and was a bit suspicious at how a Republican gubernatorial administration took over a city government and advanced an agenda that was overly friendly to corporations, predictably at the expense of people.

And yes, there were plenty of criticisms of Trump, although surprisingly, he did not figure as prominently as I had assumed he would. That is not to say that Moore does not take some serious shots at Trump and his credibility, because he sure does. It is just that he also levels some serious criticism at other presidents, and it might come as a surprise to some who see this movie just who Moore takes aim at. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised at this, because I had assumed, wrongly, that this would be all about Trump and almost only Trump and his friends. Not feeling any particular loyalty to either major party, this really does not bother me, and as Moore points out, someone like Trump could not simply have just happened. We have been building up to him for many, many years.

Moore has been covering the nonsense that has been escalating in this country, slowly but surely, through the course of decades now. We had the rise of both nationalism and elitism under Reagan and again under Bush Sr., we had conservatives posturing as moderates or even liberals under Clinton and Obama, we had idiocy and even more extreme nationalism and elitism, and a very light form of authoritarianism under Bush Jr., and now we have outright outrageous idiocy and arrogance, and nationalism and elitism to the extreme, all wrapped in what is transparently starting to be fascistic tendencies. This kind of thing does not happen overnight, and Moore has been documenting it throughout. And in this movie, he shows many of the end results that we can expect to see, now that we, collectively as a country, seem to have accepted all of this on some level.





Michael Moore has a new movie out, and I wanted to go see it since first hearing about it. The opportunity arose yesterday, so I went ahead to a local theater that was playing it, and watched the over two-hour movie, which was Moore's first in what seemed like a very long time.

Moore essentially diagnosed a lot of the ills and extremities that this country is facing, and has been facing now for many decades. He talks a bit (but not all that much) about guns, which has been another topic that he has discussed at length in previous movies. Remember when he included what seemed, at the time, to be graphic footage in a short clip of the Columbine High School shooting? Well, this movie shows much more on the more recent Parkland High School shooting earlier this year. It also shows some gun nuts proudly showing off their love of guns, although he mentions that most Americans – a vast majority, actually – do not even own a firearm. Also revealed is just how much funding some politicians – Donald Trump included – have received from the NRA.  

Let me just say this to start: it is a sobering, grim, frankly depressing movie. And if you think that Donald Trump - and only Donald Trump - is the problem in this country, then Moore will wake you up to some very illuminating facts. To be sure, Moore takes aim at Trump, and does not pull any punches. However, Moore rightly also takes serious aim at many Democrats, including the two Democrats who most recently occupied (I believe that occupied is the right word for it) the Oval Office. Bill Clinton is not spared and, in fact, is lambasted. Moore does much the same with Obama, and you will see for yourself, with real footage, some of the less savory aspects of President Obama, particularly during his visit to Flint, Michigan.

Now, I know some people who likely would be upset by this. There are plenty of people I know who absolutely loathe Trump, understandably, but love Obama. Some feel the same way about the Clintons, as well. Moore lets loose in this movie, and makes it clear just how damaging these prominent faces of the Democratic party have been. He mentions how President Bill Clinton deregulated the banks, so that there was less oversight, helping to set up the abuses and eventual financial crisis that these abuses led to nearly eight years after he left office. Clinton cut welfare programs, and set up the modern to for profit prison system.

Yet, the movie actually opens up with the Clintons, in a manner that will be reminiscent of Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" opening, with Moore asking "Was it all just a dream?" as he shows the celebrations of what seemed to be a sure Democratic victory. This time, instead of celebrities honoring Al Gore back in the 2000 election, it was celebrities honoring Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. There are clips where one woman after another is shown tearfully taking pride that a woman has finally reached the White House. It seemed like a sure thing, after all. There was a probability factor of 85 percent that Hillary was going to win, as this movie clearly shows. Even FOX News seemed to almost feel relief that they would not have to defend a man like Trump for the next four years, Moore argues.

Indeed, the Democrats were getting ready for a celebration. The Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan, picked for the symbolism of the glass ceiling that Hillary Clinton had chosen as her bursting through the limitations of the past,  was packed with cheerful, enthusiastic supporters who were really enjoying themselves. It was a party, and everyone looked happy, sure that this night was merely a formality, because their candidate had already basically won.

And then, of course, the surprise on Election Night. Hillary failed to win Pennsylvania.

And Florida.

And Ohio.

And Michigan.

And the White House.

Before you knew what was happening, the experts - the same experts who had picked her all along and said, basically, that this election was predetermined in her favor - were instead saying that there was really no way for her to win, that her path to the presidency was blocked. It was a shock to many across the entire nation. Then, there was Trump, delivering his victory speech, and promising to be the "President for all Americans."

Fast-forward to nearly two years later, with the midterm elections coming up, and another Michael Moore movie now in the theaters. And plenty of nonsense for Moore to unload on Trump with. After all, Trump has a style and mannerism that you either love, or you hate. Most people, especially most women, tend to hate him and his style, as do most people around the world, by the way. Yet, his supporters, including the women who support him, absolutely love him. To them, this man can do no wrong. And yes, those sickening rallies that he is holding nearly every week, they are indeed campaign stops, because as Moore shows, Trump started his 2020 re-election campaign on the day that he was inaugurated, in January of 2017. Most of us feel sick to our stomach when we think of the 2016 election, but this guy and his supporters, of course, want to keep reliving that moment time and time and time again.

On some levels, the nation seems virtually unrecognizable since Trump took over. Yet, on some levels, this is exactly the same country that it was before, as well. Right away, people were outraged by his lies. He claimed that his inaugural crowd was the largest ever, and bigger than Obama's. That was a lie, but what went unnoticed was his first act as president, which was to make home ownership for the middle class more difficult. His White House became like a revolving door in terms of employment, with people coming in and going out again. But the economic policies privileging the wealthiest Americans and huge corporations remained largely the same, only were even more pronounced. Nazis marched on American streets and President Trump seemed on the fence about condemning their violence, and people were outraged when he referred to immigrants coming from "shithole nations," yet the racism within this country has always been just underneath the surface. It never has taken too much to bring it right back to the surface. Trump set off outrage by pulling the United States out of international agreements. First, it was the Paris Climate Accord, but the United States had refused to sign other similar agreements, such as the Rio agreement in 1992, or the Kyoto Climate Protocol in 1997 that the United States never fully ratified. And let's face it: climate change deniers, and science deniers more generally, have always seemed far more numerous and politically influential here than elsewhere in the world, especially among developed nations. There was concern when Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal and NAFTA, United States has long had a history of breaking treaties. Just ask Native Americans. Trump pulled the United States out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, but let's face it, the last time that we really had a president expressing serious concern towards human rights around the world was Jimmy Carter.

Indeed, the United States is the same country it was before the election. On some levels, many people felt very differently about the United States before November 9, 2016, and after that date, when the nation collectively elected Trump to the White House. But on many levels, we are very much the same nation, with similar policies and similar mannerisms, only with a President that, despite his renowned dishonesty, is being more honest about who we really are. The only thing is that enough people, even enough Americans, do not want this man to be the voice and the face - I have often likened him to be the literal "Ugly American" face - of the country for at least the next four, or possibly eight, and maybe even more, years, following the election. Because Trump represents all of the worst excesses about this country, but the fact of the matter is that these traits have always been there. Under President Trump, they have simply been greatly magnified, as has his arrogance. It seems to me that Americans prefer a more understated form of arrogance and prejudiced. So long as people cannot hold us up to all of these failings as a nation, so long as many of the problems - which have become glaring to much of the rest of the world, but which many Americans remain strangely blind to - then we are basically okay with it all. 

For a more honest diagnosis of the sickness that has actually long been here in the United States, Moore returns to his own hometown of Flint, Michigan. And he explains what is happening there, what has happened, and the seemingly slow motion decay of this city from literally being the place where the middle class of this country was born, to the symbol of how it can - and surely will if we continue going as we are going. - die. And this story predates Donald Trump ascending to the White House. To be sure, Trump hardly seems bothered at all by what is happening, and even seems to applaud it. But the story of Flint goes back much, much farther than that, back to Moore's first movie, which documents the closing of a plant during the Reagan years. And the decline of this city, and other towns like it across the nation, has been the product of self-serving politicians who look out for their own selfish interests first and foremost, and who allow entire communities to rot and fall upon hard times. Now, Flint is a city that makes headlines for all of the wrong reasons: for plant closures, for crumbling infrastructure, for poverty, for violence, and most recently, for poisoned water, literally.

Briefly, the people of Flint - justifiably angry at the literally criminal conduct of their rich, white, Republican governor and his actions that greatly contributed to the poisoned water - felt elated when their problems received enough attention that President Obama came for a visit. Obama may seem like a glittering example of an ideal leader, especially in comparison to Trump. But when you see him visiting Flint, Michigan, you see a very different side to Obama - and one that Obama himself likely will not want you to remember. I do not want to spoil what happens, or how the people of Flint reacted, because most people will not recall these events, or this news story. Admittedly, I did not, and this clip was new to me. But if you are one of those people who idealize Obama, or the Democrats, for that matter, this movie will have some surprises in store for you. Nasty ones, for that matter. But Moore wants you to understand that all that has happened in this country has not merely been the result of one man (Trump), or even of one party (the GOP), but that both major parties have greatly contributed to this downfall. And Flint keeps coming up, because there is no other town in America that is so symbolic of this decline as Flint, where again, Moore comes from.

Speaking of Flint, Moore - who is originally from Flint, which has been a prominent subject matter in prior Moore films as well - explains in great detail just how the water crisis happened, and how hypocritical and cynical was the "handling" of this crisis by Michigan's governor, Rick Snyder, who actually made sure that this crisis came to be to begin with. Snyder is a very wealthy man, and Moore argued that his rose to become governor of that state - with no previous political experience, except for the fact that he was a very wealthy man - was actually a foretaste of what the entire nation would soon face under Trump. 

Prior to Snyder coming to power, there were no water issues for Flint. It got it's water from a nearby Great Lake. In fact, Michigan is surrounded by the Great Lakes, and has more fresh water than any other state in the country, and an impressive amount of the fresh water available in the entire world. Really, there should be no issues regarding access to water anywhere in Michigan. However, Snyder, for no particularly good reason other than the profit motive, decided to build an entirely new, completely unnecessary water canal to bring fresh water to Flint, even though the older one, which was built many decades ago, was still working fine. But since the new canal was under construction, the drinking water in Flint would be switched to the Flint river, which was filled with unsavory things that you do not want in drinking and/or bathing water. 

The situation began to gain national attention when it was discovered that people were getting sick, and that there were unacceptable levels of lead in the water that were far higher than the maximum lead levels allowed by law and deemed safe. It caused outrage, yet it only seemed to get Snyder's attention when it was discovered that this same contaminated water was eroding the ability of GM to make their automobiles. That was when Snyder finally did something about it. 

But what he did was more outrageous: he allowed GM - and only GM - to gain access to fresh water from the old water line. Flint residents would continue to have the water from the Flint River, while Michigan government officials went  into overdrive trying to convince people that the water had safe levels of lead in it, and that the crisis had passed, even though it clearly had it. Some prominent government officials - President Obama included - pretended to have drinks of water, although they only essentially brought their glasses to their lips and wet their lips, and nothing more. They themselves would not drink the Kool Aid...er, sorry, I mean the local Flint water.

The situation in Flint has persisted for a long time. That city has seen nothing but bad times, and a general decline, for many decades now, and the problems keep piling up for it. People who have homes there, Moore argues in this movie, are stuck. They cannot sell their homes, or get rid of the money that they owe on those homes. They have the most expensive water bills in the entire country, and look at what it gets them. Decades ago, Moore made a film about the closing of the General Motors plant in Flint, and he has addressed other horrible incidents that happen there, including a school shooting. Now, he talks about it as symbolic of how poor, and mostly minority communities bear the brunt of the worst that this country has to offer, of how the problems keep piling up for these places by design. It was a Republican governor who initiated the problems by aggressively going for a new pipeline that would benefit the few, and which hurt the residents of Flint. But a Democratic President feigned sympathy and empathy, which he was always big on in his speeches, but in reality showed indifference, which Moore clearly documents in this movie.

In fact, Obama added to their problems by making it a place where the Army could get some target practice in, literally bombing some of the numerous abandoned buildings. Yes, that's right: as if the people of Flint did not have enough problems as is, the very fact that Flint has fallen upon seriously hard times, and has the decaying infrastructure to show for it, the city was given the green light for further destruction and loud explosions reminiscent of images of wars that we had in, say, Iraq. Except, of course, this is right here in the United States, in Michigan. Residents were not warned in advance, and they found out only when helicopters were flying overhead, and when bombs were exploding nearby. There are Democrats who have spoken out about the crime of the water issue - and let's call a spade a spade and refer to it as what it truly is - but just as many Democrats simply merely verbally express sympathy, while nothing is done. Trump, of all people, was the one presidential candidate in the 2016 election who visited Flint, but it seemed more out of admiration for what Governor Snyder managed to do, than any kind of sympathy for the residents of Flint, or for their problems.

Moore makes the argument, which is one that should be readily apparent anyway, that if you are poor today in America, and especially if you are someone of color, your life is not valued. Moore suggests that Flint might be a testing ground, and that these kinds of problems will be coming soon to a city near you. Indeed, he may be right. It would not be difficult to see this happening soon in many other places all around the country. After all, it already did happen in West Virginia (remember that?), when the water suddenly got contaminated because of fracking, although all of the powers that be denied that this was the cause of it. And with the major news media refusing to do much more than touch upon these stories, and not explore them anywhere near as adequately as Moore does, these shocking stories, that should inspire horror and anger among fellow Americans, instead meets with our trademark collective indifference.

The news media has not adequately addressed these issues or made clear exactly what has happened in Flint, either. In fact, Moore's movie makes it clear what happened there and why, in a way that I, for the first time, felt I understood why it happened, and who was responsible. Indeed, Moore has done the job that journalists were supposed to do. In fact, I think it is not a stretch to say that Moore, through his movies, has done some of the best reporting on real issues concerning this country, and informed viewers of the real problem, and why these problems exist, and why they persist.

One of the major problems that I personally see, and which Moore's movies also address, is the inadequacy of the news media. Frankly, it feels like it is fluff, that it is not serious news. I have personal opinions on this, but that is a discussion for another time. But let me just say that it feels like the nation is the worse for it. We hear a lot about how Americans seem to be growing dumber, despite increased access to information. There are several reasons for this, but ridiculous programs that pass as the "news," but which focus on celebrity stories, or give very opinionated interpretations of what they feel is the news (especially FOX News), have become the dominant source of "news" for Americans, telling them essentially what clearly interested and hardly objective and independent sources want Americans to know and believe. Other countries have far better access to quality news, yet millions of Americans too often beat their chest and proudly proclaim that we have more freedom and access to news. Just a few weeks ago, I saw one guy (a Trump supporter) suggest - and not with any sense of irony - that the United States was the only place where you had access to free news, and the only place in the world with freedom. I was tempted to do something, to either debate, or make a sarcastic comment, but remembered past experiences with trying to discuss anything political with Trump supporters, and decided not to even bother engaging in that discussion. When facts no longer matter, and when people outright believe only what they want to believe, how do you shake them out of their reveries? And we wonder why it seems that we as a country seem to be growing stupider?

There is another movie that I feel sometimes was a forewarning of where we are headed as a society, and quite possibly as a world, although I think that we here in the United States are seeing it more than most others. That movie would be one which my brother mentioned to me, and which I watched online: “Idiocracy.” It is a comedy movie, and exaggerates just how stupid people will be in the future, except that many people feel that we are actually already heading in that kind of a direction in real life. Indeed, when you see some of the things happening now, and some of what millions of people believe, it becomes easier to understand why so many people feel this way.

Don’t believe me? Let’s reflect on a few things. There are millions of people who refuse to believe in science, particularly here in the United States. Tens of millions of people, the overwhelming majority of whom are not qualified to discuss the science of it, number as climate change deniers, and even more are skeptical that human beings have played any role in climate change. Many millions also do not accept Darwin’s findings on evolution, even though the science behind it is quite solid. Hell, there are quite a number of people – and a growing number, it seems, at that – who literally still believe that the Earth is flat, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. People seem to believe what they want to believe. Many want to believe that Donald Trump is a self-made man, that he is a modern day, American version of King Midas, and that what he did for his own empire, he will do for the country. This they believe, regardless of the overwhelming evidence that Trump is and always has been a con man, and that he has scammed people out of millions and millions of dollars. Also, there is the recent New York Times article that reveals that Trump “earned” a salary of $200,000 at the age of three years old and on, in what amounted to an elaborate tax scam by his father to avoid paying taxes, and that Donald Trump inherited the equivalent of what would amount to over $400 million (that’s $400,000,000) in today’s dollars, when adjusted for inflation. The fact that this man demonstrably lies incessantly, as a matter of course, or perhaps even habit, hardly seems to bother them.

In “Idiocracy,” the preferred television shows had people getting hurt for no particular reason. There was a guy who got kicked in the balls, as I recall, for no particular reason, and this was considered the height of comedy. Only, shows like that have actually come into existence. One of them in particular is called “Ridiculousness,” and I have long felt that you could actually feel yourself growing more stupid as you watch that show. At my job, which has a fair share of enthusiastic Trump supporters, it is one of the favorite shows to tune into.

But whether or not we are indeed coming closer to realizing the grim vision of “Idiocracy” or not, Michael Moore has usually been spot on with his predictions – usually dire predictions, admittedly – about the direction that this country is headed in. He predicted, long before most ever took him seriously, that Trump would win the White House. People laughed, and thought he was just trying to warn people to take this man and the threat that he posed seriously. But Moore was serious, and he was proven right. Trump, sadly, is now in the White House.

It sometimes seems like everything in this country is falling apart, all at once. And Moore utilizes that sense of feeling overwhelmed, almost helpless. Moore also makes sure to remind us that all of these things did not simply happen. There was a gradual build-up. Trump would have been laughed at and could never have come to power decades ago. But our standards gradually declined, over the course of long years and decades. Our democracy, and our seemingly privileged status in the world, eroded. So has our democracy, and our civility. Our sense of any kind of unifying national purpose is gone. All of these things, and decades now worth of mediocre leaders, who are often mistakenly hailed as great and visionary leaders by supporters of either of the major parties to whom they belonged, all made what is happening now possible. All of these things made a President Trump possible.

There is one part of the movie when Moore explores the rather creepy seeming crush that Donald Trump seems to have for his own daughter, Ivanka. Moore shows us some clips designed to make you uncomfortable, where Donald Trump seems almost to treat his daughter as a desirable object. He talks about her having a great body, holds her closely, and in ways that seem grossly inappropriate for a father holding his daughter. He talks about how, if she were not his daughter, she might very well be his girlfriend. It all makes you queasy and makes you feel that this is a sick, sick man, which of course Trump is.

Getting away from that aspect of Donald Trump, Moore made a comparison which is not my favorite one. It was comparing Trump to Hitler, which always seemed a bit exaggerated and overdone to me. After all, Hitler came to power, built up a war machine, and invaded numerous nations, at one point occupying most of Europe and much of North Africa. Also, not unimportantly, he and his Nazi Party started the Holocaust. Hitler rise to power wound up killing an estimated 11 million, including 6 million Jews, and is considered probably the darkest chapter in recorded human history.           

So, my thinking was that as bad as Trump is, he is not that bad.

Yet, most people felt that way about Hitler, too, before he came to power. Most people seemed to think that all of the alarm was going overboard. Moore shows us a Jewish newspaper article telling everyone shortly after Hitler took power just to calm down, that surely most of his anti-Semitism was just to gain supporters, and that he was not going to necessarily do much of anything with it. Besides, the article went on, Germany is a nation with laws, with a constitution, and these would hold Hitler back even if he wanted to do something extreme. So, everyone should simply take a deep breath, gain some perspective, and calm down. There was a New York Times article from that era that largely said the same thing, that horrific prognosis about what Hitler was capable of were greatly exaggerated.

We all know, in hindsight, that the alarm bells that people were ringing in the lead-up and immediate aftermath of Hitler’s rise to power were no exaggerations. In fact, if anything, given hindsight, they should have been even more pronounced.

The Hitler comparison is not perfect, and even this is acknowledged in this movie. Yet, Moore asks - and he is right to do so - if we are going to ask ourselves in the future at what point we could have stopped what point we could have stopped all of this, before it became too late? Really, you can ask that on many different levels, with things which, at least at first, seem unrelated. With mass shootings, was it when the first truly huge and shocking school shooting took place at Columbine High School? Was it with some later shooting, such as the one at Virginia Tech, or after Sandy Hook, or at the Orlando Night Club, or at the concert on the Vegas strip, or at the church in Sutherland Springs, or at Parkman High School earlier this year? Really, there have been so many shootings, that there are too many to list them here. But at what point should it have been readily apparent, for all but the few lone gun nuts who are hopelessly against any kind of background check or restrictions to access to even the deadliest weapons regardless of the mental condition of the person attempting to obtain them, that inaction was absolutely unacceptable?

We could ask the same thing about our healthcare system, as well. When was it obvious that it was failing, and in serious, dire need of reform? Was it when the prices began to rise higher than any other nation in the world? Was it when apartheid ended in South Africa, and their adoption of a universal, affordable healthcare system left us as the only advanced nation left that failed to provide it’s citizens with universal, affordable healthcare? Was it when those CEO’s got all of those bonuses from all of the refusals to pay for people with pre-existing conditions? Was it with the inexplicably vehement opposition to even limited healthcare reform as laid out by the Affordable Healthcare Act, often better known as Obamacare)? Was it when protesters started slapping Hitler mustaches on images of President Obama, of all people (after all, do you really think that Hitler would have liked Obama very much)? Indeed, at what point should we have realized, as a nation, that something was terribly wrong here?

What about all of the corruption in business, and/or politics? When should it have been obvious that enough was enough? Was it when the deregulation bug, which has now been all the rage for many decades, began to allow massive corporate scams that big business kept getting away with? Should we have known something was wrong, and action needed, following the Savings and Loan scandal during the Reagan years? Should we have been more alarmed when Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act (GSA)? Should we have nipped it in the bud after the outrageous Enron scandal that had the Bush administration’s fingerprints on it? Was it past time already by the time of Halliburton, Blackwater, and all of those no bid contracts in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq? At the very least, should we not have woken up following the unbelievable, criminal conduct by big banks that led to the massive economic crisis, known as the “Great Recession,” which very nearly brought the nation to it’s knees economically? Is it now, when Trump is, predictably, championing deregulation and massive tax cuts – the staples of - trickle down economics - so that he and his billionaire pals could continue to get rich off the rest of us? Was it when it became obviously to the point that it was no longer even secret that they began to buy their vested interests by paying key Washington politicians? Really, when was enough enough? When should even the most distant, passive observer paid attention and decided action was needed?

What about racism? When might we have really figured collectively that, enough is enough? After all, we wiped out a whole group of people, the Native Americans, in terms of their way of life, not to mention their dominant status on this continent? Perhaps it was when we as  nation established a system of slavery based on race? Perhaps it was when a war broke out when that system was threatened? Should we as a nation have realized something was wrong when, almost as quickly as slavery was abolished, a new form of enslavement and oppression was set up, legally and socially, under the banner of Jim Crow segregation? Those, of course, are all long ago incidents, and no one was around back then who is still around today. However, some people today are old enough to remember the days of Jim Crow segregation, and white opponents to integration holding posters with swastikas on it?

Maybe we should have paid more attention to racism once legal segregation was abolished in 1964, and not so easily convinced ourselves that it was no longer a problem, but a relic of the past. So, when should we have noticed that it was a problem? Might it have been when people were waving the Confederate battle flags at Reagan rallies in the 1980's? Could it have been during numerous incidents in the eighties, from then business tycoon Donald Trump refusing to rent to blacks on certain properties, or calling for the death penalty to be introduced to five young black men who he swore were guilty of a crime that, in fact, they did not commit? Should we have seen that it was still an enormous problem with the Rodney King beating, or the riots that broke out after the cops responsible were acquitted? Could it have been during the racial disconnect during and after the OJ Simpson trial? Surely, we should have known it was a problem when we saw young black men continually being gunned down by police officers for several years, when the angry reactions ranged from Black Lives Matter to professional athletes taking a knee for the national anthem. But should we not have been more alarmed when then candidate Donald Trump suggested that Mexicans were criminals and rapists, and proposed an end to Muslim immigration while bouncing around the idea that there should be a national registry for all Muslims in America? Maybe we could no longer deny it when Trump received the support of white supremacists groups around the country, including David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan? We definitely should have noticed something was up when a man who received those kinds of endorsements won the election, and was destined to succeed the first black man to win the White House, shouldn't we have? When Obama was elected, some were quick to pronounce an end to racism as a major problem in this country, and there was talk of a post-racial society. Was that blindness what allowed future events to happen? Yet, some were still reluctant to talk about racism even still, and so the problem not only continued once Trump was in office, but grew. Should we not have noticed that it had already spiraled out of control when hate crimes spiked up? Perhaps when Nazis and other white supremacist groups were marching on American streets? Perhaps the embarrassment of the President of the United States dismissively referring to numerous Central American and African countries, as well as Haiti, as "shithole countries?"

More generally, when should this country have recognized, and at least tried to halt, the general decline that we have seen now for many decades? I believe that things were more or less going well, in terms of us feeling we had a unified purpose, a sense of place, and optimism about a bright future, until Kennedy was assassinated. From that point onward, it seems that the United States received mostly bad news that, if you will, took the shine off. People did not believe the official Warren Commission Report, and skepticism grew. It grew even more for the controversial Vietnam War, especially as the war soured, as we got bogged down in a no win situation even while prominent government officials always gave rosy accounts of successes, and assurances that we were reaching the light at the end of the tunnel, and skepticism grew especially once the Pentagon papers were released. Then, there was Watergate. 

Americans had grown accustomed to skepticism, and they clearly wanted to believe in something again. It seems to me - and this has nothing to do with Michael Moore's movie, admittedly, but is just a slice of personal opinion - that we began to turn to to believing only what we wanted to believe in, regardless of facts, as early as the rise of Reagan in the early 1980's. We turned away from a very intelligent leader with a sense of responsibility towards the future that went beyond the next election cycle. Carter warned the nation about the impending energy crisis, and he was proven right over the following decades. He also warned us about a moral crisis that was escalating already then, but which has grown into the nation's biggest obstacle now, and we chose to ignore him, collectively. Instead, we opted to get a guy with a handsome face and a nice smile, some stories to make us laugh. A man who told us pretty lies, who told us what we wanted to hear, rather than what we needed to hear. We liked it so much, that we kept turning to such individuals. Eventually, the Democrats got in on the game, too, with Clinton and Obama. Clinton, like Reagan, was known as the "Teflon President," and was considered "Republican lite" back in the 1990's. And Obama tried to model his presidency on what he perceived to be a successful presidency before him: the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Ever since Reagan, the country has increasingly turned to "leaders" like this without scrutiny, and we got used to it, over the course of decades. But, of course, our problems grew, too, because we refused to address them, or often, even to acknowledge them. After decades of this, someone like Donald Trump reaching the White House was, frankly, inevitable.

When Reagan won the presidency in a surprise landslide in 1980, and then won re-election with a record landslide in 1984, his popularity changed the United States. The Democrats kept losing election after election, until they turned to someone who was virtually a watered down Republican in Democratic clothing, and he won them the White House. But as the Democrats turned more to the right, and became more corporate friendly themselves, the Republicans went even farther to the right themselves. And the so-called center went significantly to the right along with it. If you look at the 1956 Republican platform (and remember, Republicans were considered the right of center party at the time), it becomes rather astonishing to see that today's Democrats (supposedly the party on the left), more than half a century later, are farther to the right than those Republicans were on some key issues, particularly in terms of economics. In 1956, Republicans promised to provide economic assistance to low income families, and they wanted to protect Social Security. They also wanted to raise the minimum wage, expand unemployment benefits, strengthen labor laws, and promote equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex. Oh, and they also wanted to provide asylum for refugees. Those positions would be considered not only too liberal for Republicans of today, but they would be viewed as radical even among most Democrats. After all, there was a reason that Trump was able to attack Hillary Clinton from the left, of all things. He attacked her for taking large corporate donations, as well as for supporting the Iraq war. And let's face it, she was vulnerable to those criticisms, which had already been used against her during the Democratic primary, and which haunted her, once again, during the general election.

Yes, that is how far off center we have gone as a nation. And if you have not caught on yet, that is how you get a President Donald Trump.

Oh, and when someone like Michael Moore releases movie after movie trying to wake Americans up to this alarming trend, he is lambasted and blamed for inciting violence (yes, you will see a clip of Alex Jones suggesting, with a straight face, that Moore has been inciting violence), and dismissed as a biased liberal or even a communist. All he is really doing is documenting the political direction that we, as a country, have decided to go with, in all of our collective hypocrisy and cynicism.

Let us remember that Trump was not the first president in most of our lifetimes who used the expression "Make America Great Again." Moore shows a very brief clip of Reagan saying this exact same thing, although this is, if memory serves me right, the only time that Reagan is even mentioned in this movie.

Ultimately, Moore has made another strong movie that challenges us by examining where we have gone, and where we are going, as a nation. But this is a grim reality, of course. It is not a cheery subject matter, and this film was not quite as funny as some of Moore's previous films. There are moments of humor, to be sure. But Moore really seems to be warning us that we are no longer flirting with disaster anymore, that the stakes are raised. That we are about to marry disaster, that a new form of fascism, and not merely political posturing that almost amounts to fascism, is virtually upon us. All it would take is another September 11th, and this movie makes that quite clear. Maybe this would be a good time to remember that President Trump once suggested that another national crisis is what this country needs to get unified again, almost as if he is looking forward to the opportunity of such a crisis occurring on his watch. Let us also remember that many people were looking for Trump's own "Reichstag Fire" moment, that one event that would give him the grounds to grab even more political power for himself, and when this nation, as a whole, finally drops any pretense of being a free democracy anymore.

Moore warns us that we are just about there. This movie feels even grimmer than some of his past movies, and that is saying something. He outright asks us, at what point did we, or will we, reach the point of no return? There are hopeful moments, and he does show the activism that outrage over Trump had brought, with massive protests. He shows the promising sign of young activists from Parkland High School suddenly showing the rest of the nation how to get active and get things done. But as we all know, these hardly ever seem to translate to election successes, and Moore deliberately released this film on the heel of perhaps the most crucial midterm elections in our lifetime. He may be right, it may be now or never. If you want to be informed, and not given the line of how the Democrats are the good guys that can save us, but get a deeper and more meaningful diagnosis of why this country feels sick right now, please do yourself a favor and go see this movie!