Michael Moore Wants You to Save Democracy This November
The filmmaker/activist has a tsunami of reasons you should feel energized.
Filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore says he has a lot of reasons you should feel good about Democrat candidates’ chances in the midterm elections, now only a few weeks away. He is so certain about them, he is calling them “truths” (tweaking the former president’s latest failed venture). There are so many reasons you should not feel down, he claims, that they are a veritable tsunami.
And he’s counting them down every day, 44 in all from his start in late September.
My wife and I listened to the podcast on a recent trip, and it did lift our spirits. (I had been receiving the daily emails.) So, why is he doing it? As he says at the top of the podcast:
“I’m so tired of listening — on television, on the news, online — the nonstop punditry of how the Democrats are going to lose the House, Democrats are going to be lucky if they get to maintain their 50–50 control of the Senate, and [about] Biden, all of his horrible approval ratings and everything. Lose, lose, lose is the tone. And I think that’s maybe not so correct.”
So, what are some of those reasons?
A huge one is that the vast majority of voters are not white, older men:
“Nearly 70% now of the eligible electorate, the voters, of this country, the United States of America, are either female, people of color, or young people between the ages of 18 and 35 — or a combination of the three.”
Moore also says that the corporate media, forever wedded to conventional thinking, will continue to ignore President Biden’s many, even historic, accomplishments and claim that he, even with a much-improved approval rating, is a drag on other democratic candidates.
The mainstream media will also insist that the only thing people care about is inflation, particularly gas prices. But Moore maintains that is a false narrative by the corporate media, which is always hard at work (or hardly working) on behalf of the ownership class:
“They are lying to you. And they know exactly what they are doing. They are convinced, due to our past behavior, that we are frightened of the Right, that we believe we are going to lose — and that we are filled with pessimism, cynicism and the justified doubts that the often-lame Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But the tide has turned — and it has turned massively.”
Moore believes that more Americans are coming to understand the foundational question at stake in this election: whether the world’s most cherished democracy continues, with all the liberties that come with it — the freedom of speech, of religious belief (or no belief), of the free press, of the right to peacefully assemble. These essential rights have helped make the United States the creative and economic envy of the world.
Anyway, he writes, the vast majority of Americans hate both traitors (Truth #1) and fascists (Truth #9).
Across the country, hundreds of Republicans who believe with no evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent are running for Congress or for key state government roles. As Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) said recently at Arizona State University, where she told Arizona voters to elect Democrats:
“If you care about democracy and you care about the survival of our republic, then you need to understand — we all have to understand — that we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections.”
Against these relentless messages of gloom, Moore is more than happy to buck you up with his tsunami of hope. As he notes, your feeling despondent, feeling that there is little hope of gaining more power in Congress is precisely where the Republicans want you to be.
So, refuse to be there.
But, as Moore says, unlike the former president, who claims he can just think things and make them so, we have to do more to save our democracy. Yes, there will be some real work involved to create the tsunami of voters that Moore envisions:
“We all not only have to vote, we have to bring five people with us to the polls. We have to convince another ten people to show up on their own. We’ve got to remind them, we’ve got to knock on doors, we’ve got to make calls. We’ve got to participate in our local towns, our neighborhoods, to get out the vote.”
If you need a lift and want to get energized to get to work to help save your democracy, listen to the “Mike’s Midterm Tsunami of Truth Campaign” edition of his podcast, “Rumble with Michael Moore,” after which you can sign up for a daily brief email at his Substack detailing the reasons you should feel positive about November 8.
