MICHAEL MOORE
Friends:
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to
you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the
Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing
news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched,
ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our
next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be
saying them for the next four years: “PRESIDENT TRUMP.”
Never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than
I do right now.
I can see what you’re doing right now. You’re shaking your
head wildly – “No, Mike, this won’t happen!” 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.
You alternate between being appalled at him and laughing at him because of his
latest crazy comment or his embarrassingly narcissistic stance on everything because
everything is about him. And then you listen to Hillary and you behold our very
first female president, someone the world respects, someone who is whip-smart
and cares about kids, who will continue the Obama legacy because that
is what the American people clearly want! Yes! Four more years of this!
You need to exit that bubble right now. You need to stop
living in denial and face the truth which you know deep down is very, very
real. Trying to soothe yourself with the facts – “77% of the electorate
are women, people of color, young adults under 35 and Trump cant win a majority
of any of them!” – or logic – “people aren’t going to vote for
a buffoon or against their own best interests!” – is your brain’s way
of trying to protect you from trauma. Like when you hear a loud noise on the
street and you think, “oh, a tire just blew out,” or, “wow, who’s playing with
firecrackers?” because you don’t want to think you just heard someone being
shot with a gun. It’s the same reason why all the initial news and eyewitness
reports on 9/11 said “a small plane accidentally flew
into the World Trade Center.” 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. 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 plowed 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!”
Well, folks, this isn’t an accident. It is happening. And if
you believe Hillary Clinton is going to beat Trump with facts and smarts and
logic, then you obviously missed the past year of 56 primaries and caucuses
where 16 Republican candidates tried that and every kitchen sink they could
throw at Trump and nothing could stop his juggernaut. As of today,
as things stand now, I believe this is going to happen – and in order to deal
with it, I need you first to acknowledge it, and then maybe, just maybe, we can
find a way out of the mess we’re in.
Don’t get me wrong. I have great hope for the country I live
in. Things are better. The left has won the cultural wars.
Gays and lesbians can get married. A majority of Americans now take the liberal
position on just about every polling question posed to them: Equal pay for
women – check. Abortion should be legal – check. Stronger environmental laws –
check. More gun control – check. Legalize marijuana – check. A huge shift has
taken place – just ask the socialist who won 22 states this year. And there is
no doubt in my mind that if people could vote from their couch at home on their
X-box or PlayStation, Hillary would win in a landslide.
But that is not how it works in America. People have to
leave the house and get in line to vote. And if they live in poor, Black or
Hispanic neighborhoods, they not only have a longer line to wait in, everything
is being done to literally stop them from casting a ballot. So in most
elections it’s hard to get even 50% to turn out to vote. And therein lies the
problem for November – who is going to have the most motivated, most inspired
voters show up to vote? You know the answer to this question.
Who’s the candidate with the most rabid supporters? Whose crazed fans are going
to be up at 5 AM on Election Day, kicking ass all day long, all the way until
the last polling place has closed, making sure every Tom, Dick and Harry (and
Bob and Joe and Billy Bob and Billy Joe and Billy Bob Joe) has cast his
ballot? That’s right. That’s the high level of danger we’re in. And don’t
fool yourself — no amount of compelling Hillary TV ads, or outfacting him in
the debates or Libertarians siphoning votes away from Trump is going to stop
his mojo.
Here are the 5 reasons Trump is going to win:
- Midwest
Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit. I believe Trump
is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the
rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have
elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only
Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary
in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32
million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in
the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How
can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well
maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of
NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump
is going to hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade
policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states. When
Trump stood in the shadow of a Ford Motor factory during the Michigan
primary, he threatened the corporation that if they did indeed go ahead
with their planned closure of that factory and move it to Mexico, he would
slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built cars shipped back to the United
States. It was sweet, sweet music to the ears of the working class of
Michigan, and when he tossed in his threat to Apple that he would force
them to stop making their iPhones in China and build them here in America,
well, hearts swooned and Trump walked away with a big victory that should
have gone to the governor next-door, John Kasich.
From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the
middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn
across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle
Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by
the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a
good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist
from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving the room.
What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here. Elmer Gantry shows
up looking like Boris Johnson and just says whatever shit he can make up to
convince the masses that this is their chance! To stick to ALL of them,
all who wrecked their American Dream! And now The Outsider, Donald Trump, has
arrived to clean house! You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even have
to like him! He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the
center of the bastards who did this to you! SEND A MESSAGE! TRUMP IS YOUR
MESSENGER!
And this is where the math comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney
lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry,
as he’s expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to
Georgia (states that’ll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and
then he just needs these four rust belt states. He doesn’t need Florida. He
doesn’t need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is how it will happen in
November.
- The
Last Stand of the Angry White Man. Our male-dominated, 240-year run of
the USA is coming to an end. A woman is about to take over! How did this
happen?! On our watch! There were
warning signs, but we ignored them. Nixon, the gender traitor, imposing
Title IX on us, the rule that said girls in school should get an equal
chance at playing sports. Then they let them fly commercial jets. Before
we knew it, Beyoncé stormed on the field at this year’s Super Bowl (our
game!) with an army of Black Women, fists raised, declaring that our
domination was hereby terminated! Oh, the humanity!
That’s a small peek into the mind of the Endangered White
Male. There is a sense that the power has slipped out of their hands, that
their way of doing things is no longer how things are done. This monster, the
“Feminazi,”the thing that as Trump says, “bleeds through her eyes or wherever
she bleeds,” has conquered us — and now, 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.
By then animals will have been granted human rights and a fuckin’ hamster is
going to be running the country. This has to stop!
- The
Hillary Problem. Can we speak honestly, just among ourselves? And
before we do, let me state, I actually like Hillary – a lot – and I think
she has been given a bad rap she doesn’t deserve. But her vote for the
Iraq War made me promise her that I would never vote for her again. To
date, I haven’t broken that promise. For the sake of preventing a
proto-fascist from becoming our commander-in-chief, I’m breaking that
promise. I sadly believe Clinton will find a way to get us in some kind of
military action. She’s a hawk, to the right of Obama. But Trump’s psycho
finger will be on The Button, and that is that. Done and done.
Let’s face it: Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump – it’s
Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is
untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really
believing in anything other than what can get you elected. That’s why she
fights against gays getting married one moment, and the next she’s officiating
a gay marriage. Young women are among her biggest detractors, which has to hurt
considering it’s the sacrifices and the battles that Hillary and other women of
her generation endured so that this younger generation would never have to be
told by the Barbara Bushes of the world that they should just shut up and go
bake some cookies. But the kids don’t like her, and not a day goes by that a
millennial doesn’t tell me they aren’t voting for her. No Democrat, and
certainly no independent, is waking up on November 8th excited
to run out and vote for Hillary the way they did the day Obama became president
or when Bernie was on the primary ballot. The enthusiasm just isn’t there. And
because this election is going to come down to just one thing — who drags the
most people out of the house and gets them to the polls — Trump right now is in
the catbird seat.
- The
Depressed Sanders Vote. Stop fretting about Bernie’s supporters
not voting for Clinton – we’re voting for Clinton! The polls already show
that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year than the number
of Hillary primary voters in ’08 who then voted for Obama. This is not the
problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that while the average
Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat
reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what’s called a “depressed vote”
– meaning the voter doesn’t bring five people to vote with her. He doesn’t
volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never
talks in an excited voice when asked why she’s voting for Hillary. A
depressed voter. Because, when you’re young, you have zero tolerance for
phonies and BS. Returning to the Clinton/Bush era for them is like
suddenly having to pay for music, or using MySpace or carrying around one
of those big-ass portable phones. They’re not going to vote for Trump;
some will vote third party, but many will just stay home. Hillary Clinton
is going to have to do something to give them a reason to support
her — and picking a moderate, bland-o, middle of the road old white
guy as her running mate is not the kind of edgy move that tells millenials
that their vote is important to Hillary. Having two women on the ticket –
that was an exciting idea. But then Hillary got scared and has decided to
play it safe. This is just one example of how she is killing the youth
vote.
- The
Jesse Ventura Effect. Finally, 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. It’s one of the few places left in society
where there are no security cameras, no listening devices, no spouses, no
kids, no boss, no cops, there’s not even a friggin’ time limit. You can
take as long as you need in there and no one can make you do anything. You
can push the button and vote a straight party line, or you can write in
Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There are no rules. And because of that, and
the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are
going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because
they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. Just
because it will upset the apple cart and make mommy and daddy mad. And in
the same way like when you’re standing on the edge of Niagara Falls and
your mind wonders for a moment what would that feel like to go over that
thing, a lot of people are going to love being in the position of
puppetmaster and plunking down for Trump just to see what that might look
like. Remember back in the ‘90s when the people of Minnesota elected a
professional wrestler as their governor? They didn’t do this because they’re
stupid or thought that Jesse Ventura was some sort of statesman or
political intellectual. They did so just because they could. Minnesota is
one of the smartest states in the country. It is also filled with people
who have a dark sense of humor — and voting for Ventura was their version
of a good practical joke on a sick political system. This is going to
happen again with Trump.
Coming back to the hotel after appearing on Bill Maher’s
Republican Convention special this week on HBO, a man stopped me. “Mike,” he
said, “we have to vote for Trump. We HAVE to shake things up.”
That was it. That was enough for him. To “shake things up.” President Trump
would indeed do just that, and a good chunk of the electorate would like to sit
in the bleachers and watch that reality show.
(Next week I will post my thoughts on Trump’s Achilles Heel
and how I think he can be beat.)
Yours,
__
De la página web del autor.
No comments:
Post a Comment