Fahrenheit 11/9 (15)
“How. The. F***. Did. This. Happen?” So asks Michael Moore in the opening scenes of Fahrenheit 11/9, a sequel of sorts to his 2004 documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11. That film detailed the link between the attack on the Twin Towers and George W Bush’s decision to go to war against Iraq. The titular date in the new film refers to Donald Trump’s election victory on 9 November, 2016, a result from which the world is still reeling, making Moore’s question an urgent one. It’s also one he seems eminently qualified to answer, after having warned the Democrats they would “dismiss Trump at their peril”.
Moore’s prophetic observation was based on a long-term understanding of the discontent voters have felt towards the political establishment. As a crusading filmmaker from the working-class heartland of America, he’s witnessed and documented the pain of low-income workers, the marginalised and the voiceless for most of his career. So it’s both strange and frustrating that in attempting to answer the question he sets for the film, he never goes near a disgruntled white, working-class Trump voter. Instead he adopts a scattershot approach that takes in everything from Trump “accidentally” throwing his hat into the ring for the presidential race as a ploy to get more money for doing
The Apprentice to the failure of the Democrats to properly embrace and engage with the inherently left-leaning sensibilities of the American people.
Overall, the film – which is full of typically outrageous stunts – plays like a cinematic approximation of the chaos of the past two years. Alas, the real question Moore seems to be hinting at, but never quite asks, is this: if Trump and the Right can get away with using outrageous tactics to grab power, why can’t the Left? The fact that Trump is in the White House and Moore’s film tanked in the US recently perhaps tells its own story. ■