‘You need someone comfortable on television to win elections’

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The director’s latest film, Fahrenheit 11/9, is a broadside against both the president and the Democratic establishment that failed to defeat him. He explains why a leftwing comeback is on the cards

American filmmaker Michael Moore, known for his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, criticising Iraq War and Bush administration said that trump had provided the formula of how to win elections. “I think they now know the formula of what they need to win an election. You need someone who people are familiar with, someone comfortable being on television,” Moore said in an interview with the guardian.

The filmmaker talking about his recent documentary Fahrenheit 11/9 (9 November 2016 being the day Donald Trump was declared US president-elect), said that this film was different from his other works, designed not simply to inform, but to mobilise people. “Yeah, I was hoping to stop the Iraq war, hoping to end gun violence, to ensure every American has health insurance,” he explains. However Fahrenheit 11/9 is not just about one issue, Donald Trump. “It’s not some single issue, it’s not just about Donald Trump,” he says. “There’s nothing I can tell you about him that you don’t already know. You’d be wasting time and money to watch that.”

The filmmaker added that the film was to make people realise that they had the power to crush Trump in the upcoming US congressional election in November and the film’s release was to coincide with the enthusiasm seen on the left. “I’ve seen films where you’re so reinvigorated that at the end of the film, you can’t wait to get to get out of the theatre and go out and do something. I love those kinds of films … A film like the one we’ve made asking people, not to give up or give in, but to realise how much…power and strength we have! We have a power on 6 November to…crush Trump, the uber rich who are thrilled with his performance, the old white male establishment that thinks they’re going to keep running the show, when their show was long, long over,” said Moore.

Published in Daily Times, October 20^th 2018.