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Home / New Zealand

Patricia Greig: Renegade film-maker Michael Moore called the US presidential race long before the media dared

By Patricia Greig
NZ Herald·
10 Nov, 2016 03:49 AM4 mins to read

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Source: CNN.
Opinion

"Friends," Michael Moore began, "This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president."

Posting to his website, social and political activist and commentator Moore went where the mainstream media avoided to go and called the election for Donald Trump.

And he did this way before anyone in the mainstream media were willing to do so, urging those who wanted to hear as early as July this year that Donald J. Trump would be their president come November.

The problem was just that other than ardent Trump fans, nobody wanted to hear this crazy prediction from America's enfant terrible film-maker and political satirist.

Just like they also pretended not to hear earlier, in December 2015, when he predicted that "Donald Trump is absolutely going to be the Republican candidate for president of the United States."

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"Unfortunately, you are living in a bubble that comes with an adjoining echo chamber where you and your friends are convinced the American people are not going to elect an idiot for president," Moore said on his website, referring to those who continued to underestimate the Trump campaign.

That would be the bubble, which I'm certain you're aware of by now, that allowed us the moments we laughed at Trump for his narcissistic comments and we drew sharp breaths at the misogyny and racism which ran rancid from his mouth.


"Michael Moore in TrumpLand" is his latest documentary film  about the 2016 United States presidential race. Photo / Dog Eat Films
"Michael Moore in TrumpLand" is his latest documentary film about the 2016 United States presidential race. Photo / Dog Eat Films

Remember how nice that bubble was? Where we imagined Hillary Clinton as a far better alternative, because anything would be - wouldn't it?

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You can't blame us for living in what now, in hindsight, was more than slightly idealist.

"We want to - we need to - hope for the best because, frankly, life is already a shit show and it's hard enough struggling to get by from paycheck to paycheck," Moore explained.

"We can't handle much more bad news. So our mental state goes to default when something scary is actually, truly happening. The first people ploughed down by the truck in Nice spent their final moments on earth waving at the driver whom they thought had simply lost control of his truck, trying to tell him that he jumped the curb: 'Watch out!,' they shouted. 'There are people on the sidewalk!'"

Acknowledging that Clinton wouldn't beat Trump with facts and logic, Moore said, would allow the world to better deal with accepting the result of the 2016 presidential election.

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Moore therefore has presented five reasons why citizens of America would pick Trump at the polling stations this week, beginning with explaining the Rust Belt Brexit.

Moore picked Trump would focus efforts in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, talking promising economics to depressed towns that are "the carcass of what we used to call middleclass". Moore predicted that if Trump had the rust belt under his belt he would take the election.

Film-maker Michael Moore is not afraid to call things as he sees them. A promotions image from his "Fahrenheit 9/11", which examined America in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Photo / File
Film-maker Michael Moore is not afraid to call things as he sees them. A promotions image from his "Fahrenheit 9/11", which examined America in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Photo / File

Secondly, Trump needed to bank on "the last stand of the Angry White Man". Moore described the mind of what he called the "Endangered White Male," the type of person who uses the word "Feminazi," the thing that Trump says, "bleeds through her eyes or wherever she bleeds."

The Endangered White Male, Moore explained, fear that "after having had to endure eight years of a black man telling us what to do, we're supposed to just sit back and take eight years of a woman bossing us around? After that it'll be eight years of the gays in the White House! Then the transgenders! You can see where this is going."

Another reason Trump won, Moore added, is that Hillary was a problematic candidate. Seen as a hawk for military action, nearly 70 per cent of voters saw her as dishonest and a "picking a moderate, bland-o, middle of the road old white guy as her running mate," didn't help.

And then there's the old Jesse Ventura effect.

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"Do not discount the electorate's ability to be mischievous or underestimate how any millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they draw the curtain and are all alone in the voting booth," Moore warned.

Because there are no rules, and people are so frustrated with a broken political system, millions would vote for Trump to upset the apple cart, just to see what it would look like.

And with that, the bubble has popped and Michael Moore was correct.

Michael Moore in his 2002 documentary "Bowling For Columbine" which explored the culture of guns and violence in the United States. Photo / File
Michael Moore in his 2002 documentary "Bowling For Columbine" which explored the culture of guns and violence in the United States. Photo / File
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