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Two years after the arrival of Trump, with the media of November – perhaps the time – imminent, two new documentaries begin with expert critics who laughingly reject the chances of Donald Trump to become president of the United States .
One comes from the Oscar-winning director Michael Moore. This is his second film about Trump; the first, 2016 Michael Moore in TrumpLand"Performed, shot and edited several weeks before the 2016 elections," captured Moore's one man show. In this document, he predicted Trump's victory; unlike the experts, in fact, he never doubted it. His latest film, Fahrenheit 11/9-That overturns the title of 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11– sums up his feelings: election day 2016 was the political equivalent of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Moore grew up in the working class of Flint, Michigan, a state where Trump beat Hillary Clinton. Jim Stern, a prolific financier and film producer, was also raised in the Midwest, but in the progressive Chicago enclave. At the beginning of 2016, he, too, felt a political change and was leaving with a film crew in Florida, West Virginia and Arizona to meet and understand Trump's supporters. Among the "facts" they share at the Stern conference American Chaos: how Clinton promised to abolish the second amendment on his first day in power.
Newsweek interviewed Moore and Stern separately. The following are combined excerpts of these conversations.
Jim, what made you think that Trump would win in early 2016?
Stern: I have lived in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco – all liberal cities – and I come from a political family. People around me were hoping that Trump would win the Republican nomination because they thought the Americans would have no way to elect him, guaranteeing Hillary's victory. I was absolutely on the other side and very concerned that she would not be able to stretch the electorate to overcome a core that would not leave Trump. And I had the impression that no one was talking to anyone. We can be sneaky and say that these poor people are so stupid. I do not believe it.
Michael, when and why did you decide to make your movie?
Moore: In January, after a year of Trump. The initial concerns about him were whether he was crazy or thinking that he had mental problems or people tapping his back because he did not have a lot of work. But I started to look at it in a very different way. Far from being crazy, I thought he was a little closer to an evil genius. Trump understood the art of performance, could read a play and knew how to distract people, especially liberals.
A lot of people you meet in your film, Jim, are workers, not the socio-economic group in which you grew up. Could you identify with them?
Stern: I spent summers in Minnesota with miners in the waters bordering during fishing trips. My father had a factory and he thought it was important for me to know the kind of people who worked for him. I never felt that I was separated. I thought I was separated with regard to problems, but not with regard to social status or social status.
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There is a man in the film, from West Virginia, with a burst of madness. Have you been afraid for your safety in this situation?
Stern: Before the interview, he tells me, "For whom do you vote?" I said, "If I tell you one thing, you will be too comfortable with me and if I tell you the other, you will be angry. . "During the interview, his ferocity became clearer, and I thought, okay, I have to go to the car. I did not feel like he was going to beat me, but it was a situation where I felt a lot of anger.
Can you identify when you realized that there was a universe of alternative facts?
Stern: It was growing. In West Virginia, they continued to say, "Trump is telling the truth and Clinton is lying," and that was just wrong. But by the time I visited Arizona, it was blatant. And I could not keep it non-confrontational when a woman told me that one in eight voters voted fraudulently and that they voted for Democrats. I challenged her about where she had this, and she said, I just know it. That's when I thought, we really have problems.
Does the word chaos refers to the title of your movie?
Stern: When people stop listening and exist in a sort of echo chamber, the temperature rises, people scream, so the results are chaotic. And obviously Trump himself is an extremely chaotic figure. Even the subjects of the movie who admire it would say so.
You share a great metaphor in your movie, which helps explain what you are talking about.
Stern: The story is that three blind meet an elephant. One catches the tail, another leg and the third the trunk. The first thinks it's a rope, the second thinks it's a vineyard, and the third thinks it's a tree. So, I'm watching the debates in California and they're watching the same debate in West Virginia and have a completely different answer.
Michael, you argue that American democracy is irretrievably broken. Do "people", in your opinion, ever win?
Moore: Next year, it's the 100th anniversary of female suffrage. Things are better. But we are a country that is taking a step forward, two steps back and, sadly, with Obama, we took five steps forward and eight steps back. We went back a long time ago, until Barry Goldwater and the John Birch Society were present. But, of course, yes, people win, if we all do our part. I temper this in this film with a warning that we are on the way to no longer win because we may have elected the last president of the United States. This action will be proven only by our action, getting up from the couch.
Do you think democracy works, Jim?
Stern: I will answer this question in two ways: Absolutely, but I do not think the constituency works. It is scandalous that the presidency is the only one in America where the majority does not win. Not the Senate, not the governor, not the catcher.
Michael, some also blame Obama – he has not fought enough for the Democrats, among others.
Moore: I do not blame Obama. I like it. Even for those of us who were alive during Kennedy and Eisenhower, he is the best president of our lives – no questions asked. In those eight years, we did not want to criticize Obama. We had to be for him. But the base had to push. He could never come out alone. We needed a leader who encouraged us to raise a hell.
Trump inherited from an American liberal class of laissez-faire who was rather satisfied. We should have been anything but content. Hillary first won 3 million votes. Do you think that if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the electoral college, he and his supporters would have remained silent? With all that the Russians have thrown at us and all the energy they have spent to defeat our democratic process, they have failed to get the majority of Americans for Trump.
We still have the last vestiges of our Constitution based on slavery and this is only thanks to the electoral college that they have succeeded. We act like these wimps. I am tired of living like this and I hope my movie will light a fire under people.
Jim, your brother Todd was Obama's climate envoy to the Paris Agreement, so you have a family connection. What is your take on Obama's guilt?
Stern: While Obama was in a difficult position, not spreading information about his piracy concerns in Russia had an impact, perhaps considerable. I understand that he thought Clinton would win anyway, that the Republicans would scream interference when he got out, but in the end it was true: there was interference and Clinton was lost by 77,000 votes over three states. He could have used his office to rally a country around this threat, which could have triggered elections in an airy race.
There is a growing feeling that Trump has just torn the political curtain out as usual. Michael, is not that just the nature of American power, other than showcases?
Moore: If we survive this, we will be strangely grateful to Trump for tearing off the mask of our political culture and exposing it for what it was. And it will be credited a little for lighting this fire so that people become active.
You say "if we survive this". Your movie contains a lot of footage of armed and angry right-wing members. Do you fear civil war?
Moore: I think everyone is scared of that. During the election, when Trump said this line on wanting the second-amendment people to be ready [if Clinton should abolish it, as some of his supporters suggested]I think there were – and people will not recognize it – many liberals unconsciously relieved not to have lost, that we would not have to deal with the 3% of the population that owns half the weapons fire.
The day of your selection Fahrenheit 11/9 in New York, Paul Manafort was sentenced and Michael Cohen was overthrown. Do you think the law is likely to catch up with Trump?
Moore: The day after the screening in New York, a Broadway woman approached me and asked: Can we organize the party now? I said no! We have work. Do not think for a second that these so-called victories at court have something to do with keeping it away. Mueller can not charge him. All we have to do is focus on November. We are a liberal country, as the film emphasized. Republicans did not win the popular vote but once every 30 years.
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