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It's on Michael Moore's empty stomach to help me explain the difference between hope and optimism. "Right now, I hope someone will feed me today," he says. But this hope is passive. This may open the appetite, but the disappointment will only be more overwhelming if it is not satisfied. On the other hand, he explains, optimism is constructive and strategic. "I am in a first world country and somewhere I have a wallet with a credit card and some money. So, the optimist in me has credibility because it's safe to say that I'll eat. Does that make any sense? I think, and I think so. Although hope is passive, optimism determines the actions we will take.
Throughout our conversation – mostly in a London hotel while eating vegetarian dumplings – he jostles around these illustrations: some work, some do not, sometimes he gets lost in a rabbit hole. But it's an insight into the mind of one of the great communicators of the Western Left: an almost obsessive desire to popularize political causes and problems, to provoke an emotional reaction that drives the public to action.
For young leftists, including myself, Moore's work was a sort of political lifeline at a time when the traditional left was almost sunk. Fahrenheit 9/11 – his indictment of George W Bush's alleged war on terror – courageously advanced otherwise marginalized ideas: he suggested that a gas pipeline project through Afghanistan could have played a role in the war and highlighted the links between the Bush administration and the Saudi regime. Moore called for Bush administration officials to be brought to justice. All of this distances the respectable centrist critique of the invasion, that it was simply a bad war at the wrong time, or a "silent war", as Obama said, rather than A crime.
His documentaries are designed not only to inform, but to mobilize people. "Yes, I was hoping to stop the war in Iraq, put an end to armed violence, so that every American has health insurance," he says. But he is keen to point out that his new film, Fahrenheit 11/9 (November 9, 2016 being the day Donald Trump was declared President-Elect of the United States), is different. "It's not an isolated problem, it's not just about Donald Trump," he says. "I can not tell you anything about him that you do not already know. You would lose time and money watching this. "
Moore is right: it would be a tedious film by numbers. Trump's average disapproval rate among Americans has not been less than 50% since March 2017; In the United Kingdom, more than three quarters have a negative opinion of the so-called "very stable genius". They do not need a movie to tell them all the bad things about Trump. During my last meeting with Moore, on the eve of the referendum on the European Union, he had predicted that Trump had every chance of winning the presidency. For most politicians in the class of experts and Democrats, such an event was less likely than an asteroid striking Earth: their arrogant predictions that, no, do not be stupid, that Trump will lose, are paraded without pity at the screen the movie. Why did he see that coming and they did not do it?
For me, one of the strongest elements of the film was its accusation against the establishment of the Democratic Party. He speaks of secular rage when he speaks of their failures. He makes a parallel with his documentary – he is again in a rabbit terrier: if it's a good movie, if the critics like him, then he did his part as a director, he has He sent his raw materials to Vertigo, the British company in charge of distributing the film, it's up to them to make it a success.
It's an allegory for the Democrats, he suggests. Polls show that on key issues, such as progressive taxation, the right to abortion, health care or gun control, most Americans are lining up on the progressive side of the law. argument. He notes that in the last six presidential elections in seven, the Democrats have won the popular vote. "The Democratic Party therefore has a population that shares the whole of its platform," he says; they even have more electors. "Still, they are still unable to put themselves and put us in power." If his film distributor continues to do so, he will cease his activities. But this is what happens, according to his film, if the Democrats become too similar to the Republicans, to take into account the corporate agenda.
Here's what I wanted to know about the absurd and scary Fahrenheit 11/9 antagonist: what Trump might be able to under certain circumstances, how he could take advantage of a crisis to focus power in his hands. What would happen if there was a major terrorist attack? That should worry everyone, Moore said. "He will immediately propose to militarize the local police. It will give police and prosecutors ample leeway to make radical arrests. It will, for example, temporarily suspend habeas corpus, things like that. All will be justified on the basis of the need to protect the United States, but things would not return to their original state, they would not be temporary measures, and he would continue to accumulate authoritarian measures.
I mention countries like Turkey, Poland and Hungary, where authoritarian rulers retain the formal attributes of democracy – there are always elections and opposition parties – but its substance is hollow. "Yes, I think it's a better model for democracy: they will maintain the appearance of democracy, but their leader will become more and more autocratic." And here is a scary and under-discussed scenario. And if Trump is just the starter, the prefect? What if his role is to change the terms of what is considered an acceptable Republican candidate for a more sophisticated authoritarian leader? "I think they're now experiencing the formula of what they need to win an election," says Moore. "You need someone with whom people are familiar, someone who is comfortable on television."
But there is a source of hope – even optimism – in the film. To paraphrase George Orwell: "If there is hope, it is in youth." The survivors of the Parkland Massacre did not settle for the US gun lobby, but did not go out of their way. an older generation, according to them. "We appreciate that you are ready to let us rebuild the world you have messed up," said a survivor to American animator Bill Maher.
The old trope is that young people start as naive leftists, then drift to the right with age. It's something that Moore rejects – "As I grow older, I get more and more angry, not appeased, in my political thinking" – and the data does not confirm it. In the 1984 presidential election, under-25s were more favorable to Reagan than Americans in their thirties and forties, and only slightly less than retirees.
And Trump is not popular among today's youth. In the 2016 election, among Americans under 30, he was lagging about 20 points. Why? "At that time, my generation, if we went to college, we would be graduates without debt. This world was our oyster: we could do the work we wanted to do, or not want to do a job. Many people took off, put on their backpacks, went to Europe, got a Eurorail pass. The so-called "American dream" seemed to be a reality. But what happened in the United States is a reflection of Britain: a neoliberal system promised freedom, but instead created insecurity and a stagnant standard of living.
"The reason they're more active and more aware is that they've seen writing on the wall, probably from college, certainly from high school. That they would not have good jobs, that they would be in a debtor prison for the first 20 or 30 years of their lives. They are angry – but not enough, in my opinion. "
In Moore's film, Nancy Pelosi, former Democrat Speaker in the House, strikes a young left-wing voter by saying, "I must say that we are capitalists, that's how things go." But it's striking that in 2018, almost three decades after the end of the cold war, in the nation of red fear and McCarthyism, in the very citadel of free market capitalism – polls show that most Young Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, "whether Pelosi likes it or not," says Moore. He remembers how Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders – whom he has supported – ran for president in a casual way in 2015. "He did not even realize it. magnitude of what would take off. If it had started a few months earlier, with the infrastructure in place, who knows what would have happened? "I think he'll do it," said Moore, optimistic that Sanders could win the nomination and defeat Trump. He tells me about an unpublished survey in West Virginia – which Trump won by a 42-point margin in 2016 – in which Sanders beats Trump in the lead. "Even if people do not agree with Bernie, they know he's honest, what you see is what you get."
But the Democratic establishment is on the run, he says: it highlights the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 29-year-old New Yorker who defeated one of the Democrats' big wigs in a primary election in June. "We covered it while no one even knew that she was running." The Democratic Civil War is at the origin of different interpretations of what happened at the time of the war. election of 2016. The Democratic Left believes that it represents the enemy of centrist orthodoxy, not capitalizing on the anti-establishment climate against a fundamentally broken system, while the Democratic right believes that Trump's supporters must be conquered and blame the so-called "identity politics". "For the loss.
Moore gives victory to Trumpists: "A waste of time! Oh my God! If you are still for Trump [after] two years, [with] Everything you saw, you left, nobody can convince you of anything! What is described as a pejorative identity politics – civil rights for blacks, LGBTQ rights, women's rights – has "revived politics," suggests Moore. "More people need to vote. You will never convince people who hate homosexuals – it's a waste of time. Our energy must bring our own citizens to go to the polls. "
He keeps coming back to the mid-term elections in November and it is clear that his film is partly an exit operation from the vote. This is absolutely necessary: Young pro-Democrat voters are the least likely to vote. Why? "They do not think the political system will help them, that's the biggest problem." He constantly meets the American voters during his travels, "full of despair, I could see that some had given up." They would vote, he suggests, but they would not end up bringing 10 other voters with them. campaign in alternative districts and uses the money that he has saved as a beneficiary of Trump tax cuts to support Democratic candidates.
It's here that Moore comes on the scene, full of righteous fury. "I've seen films where you're so invigorated that at the end of the film, you're eager to get out of the theater and do something. I like this kind of movies … A movie like the one we asked people, not to give up or give in, but to realize how much we have the power and the strength! On November 6, we will have the power to scramble fucking Trump, the rich rich who are thrilled with his performance, the old white male facility that thinks they'll continue to direct the show while their show is over. "
What he considers to be the American progressive majority is why Moore is so indifferent to the accusations he preaches to the choir. "The choir needs a song to sing, that's why it's the choir! They need a song to get them out of desperation and have to light a fire under themselves. "
He considers the nemesis of Republicans as what he calls "the Avengers" – women, young people "who had the future torn", people of color – whose history would record "himself. are gathered together and have crushed the forces of evil. " But it is very clear: there can be no return to the Democratic enterprise agenda of the past, and it is clear that he sees himself playing an important role. "People like Sanders, Alexandria and myself [Ocasio-Cortez] and Rashida [Tlaib, a socialist Democrat set to be the first Muslim congresswoman]we will be in charge of the ship and we will do the same thing as the democrats of the past. We will basically give people what they want: equal pay for women; put an end to the massive incarceration of black people; protect women's reproductive rights; create a living wage for everyone. "
But Moore's optimism is not an illusion. A little earlier, he had soberly told a London film audience that he could not promise them a happy ending. He is right not to. The possibility of defeating Trumpism will certainly depend, in part, on the person who will win the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party: its rootless wing, backed by corporations, or a new insurgent party offering a alternative to a failing system. If the latter triumphs, history will surely record that Moore, in what he nostalgically calls "the last third of my life," has played an important role.
Fahrenheit 11/9 is published on October 19 in the UK.
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