Documentary draws political parallels
Film compares Trump to Hitler — and he’s not so crazy about Obama either
On the eve of a critical election in 2004, Michael Moore released Fahrenheit 9/11, a hand grenade of a movie that made many liberals giddy and many conservatives apoplectic. Here we go again.
At the recent Toronto International Film Festival, Moore unveiled Fahrenheit 11/9, a spiritual followup to his Bush-era bombshell, which remains the highestgrossing documentary in history. The new film aims to do much of what its predecessor did: use its director’s colourfully incredulous voice to expose the complicity of the political system and maybe sway an election in the process.
But unlike that film, a Republican president is only one of Moore’s targets. As many shots as he takes at U.S. President Donald Trump, the filmmaker is eager to expose a Democratic establishment he says has not done enough to push back against the White House or advance a progressive agenda.
“One of the reasons I made this movie is that I’ve come to the conclusion that the old guard of the Democratic Party is a greater roadblock to social progress than Trump is,” Moore said. “Because they’re taking half-measures; because they ’re beholden to the same money and interests.”
The film moves among other topics between Trump: outsider progressive politicians such as congressional candidates Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Richard Ojeda and Rashida Tlaib; the West Virginia teacher’s strike; the gun-control activism of teenagers affected by the Parkland, Fla., school shooting; the missteps of the Democratic establishment; and the history of tyrants.
Closest to his heart is the water crisis in Flint, Mich., his hometown. “When you have the highest water bill in the nation in the poorest city in the nation, who has time to protest? You need to feed your family,” says one citizen, outlining one of several challenges faced by the city after its water supply became contaminated.
The tie binding all these topics is what Moore suggests is a crisis born of politics-as-usual — a desire not to address problems so much as paper them over, often in the service of large corporate interests. Indeed, Moore argues that Trump was the wrong solution to the right problem. The real solution, he says, lies in the grassroots progressivism of Ocasio-Cortez and Ojeda.
And he has strong words for Trump’s predecessor.
“The worst thing that President Obama did was pave the way for President Trump,” Moore says in a voice-over in the film, citing the “imprison(ment) of whistleblowers,” “drone strikes and bombing of civilian populations” and “deporting a record number of immigrants and separating them from their children.” He shows a scene of Obama sipping water in Flint, noting that it was a performative gesture that set the city back years because it suggested the problem had been resolved.
In what will almost certainly be one of its most controversial segments, the film spends a chunk of time drawing parallels between Trump and Adolf Hitler.
“I’m a satirist,” Moore laughed. “I just couldn’t help it.”
Asked if he really believed the comparison, Moore said, “Trump’s already on the path to Nazism,” then added, “Trump is not Hitler and Hitler is not Trump. But then, you can’t say that fascism doesn’t teach us lessons, that there aren’t parallels we can draw.” The movie uses clever editing to suggest Nazis’ war against the press, tightened grip on power and demonization of the opposition have echoes in Trump’s Republican party. But Moore offers an unorthodox solution.
“But I think we have to embrace Trump,” Moore said. “People reading this will say ‘what do you mean? Embrace Trump?’ But we have to embrace him. We have to listen to him. He’s telling lies and he’s telling the truth at the same time . ... He’s quite successful at leaning into his flaws and we laugh more and become more outraged and don’t notice how much he and Betsy DeVos and the guy from the Interior are doing to rip things up from the inside. You have to act like he’s going to be re-elected in 2020, because there’s an excellent chance he will be.”
Whether 11/9 (the title refers to the day after Trump’s election) will reach beyond a progressive audience — or even mobilize those already in that tent — remains to be seen. The première brought long standing ovations for Moore and the subjects on stage, including Cook-Hawkins and several of the Parkland teens. But theatrical documentaries had fallen a long way since 2004.
Still, Moore said he made the movie because he believe it could generate an impact. “Twice in 16 years our side won the popular vote and didn’t go into the White House,” he said. “We need to take over the Democratic Party.”