{"id":119066,"date":"2018-09-24T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=119066"},"modified":"2018-09-22T12:00:59","modified_gmt":"2018-09-22T11:00:59","slug":"michael-moores-fahrenheit-11-9-aims-not-at-trump-but-at-those-who-created-the-conditions-that-led-to-his-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/09\/michael-moores-fahrenheit-11-9-aims-not-at-trump-but-at-those-who-created-the-conditions-that-led-to-his-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Moore\u2019s \u201cFahrenheit 11\/9\u201d Aims Not at Trump but at Those Who Created the Conditions That Led to His Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts during the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., on Jan. 20, 2017. Photo: Patrick Semansky\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

21 Sep 2018 – <\/em>\u201cFahrenheit 11\/9,\u201d the title of Michael Moore\u2019s new film that opens today in theaters, is an obvious play on the title of his wildly profitable Bush-era \u201cFahrenheit 9\/11,\u201d but also a reference to the date of Donald J. Trump\u2019s 2016 election victory. Despite that, Trump himself is a secondary figure in Moore\u2019s film, which is far more\u00a0focused on the far more relevant and interesting questions of what \u2013 and, critically, who \u2013 created\u00a0the climate in which someone like Trump could occupy the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

For that reason alone, Moore\u2019s film is highly worthwhile regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum. The single most significant defect in U.S. political discourse is the monomaniacal focus on Trump himself, as though he is the cause \u2013 rather than the by-product and symptom \u2013 of decades-old systemic American pathologies.<\/p>\n

Personalizing and isolating Trump as the principal, even singular, source of political evil\u00a0is obfuscating and thus deceitful. By effect, if not design, it distracts the population\u2019s attention away from the actual architects of their plight.<\/p>\n

This now-dominant framework\u00a0misleads\u00a0people into\u00a0the nationalistic myth \u2013 at once both frightening and comforting \u2013\u00a0that prior to 2016\u2019s \u201cFahrenheit 11\/9,\u201d the U.S., though quite imperfect and saddled with \u201cflaws,\u201d was nonetheless a fundamentally kind, benevolent,\u00a0equitable\u00a0and healthy democracy, one which, by aspiration if not always in action, welcomed immigrants, embraced diversity, strove for greater economic equality, sought to defend human rights against assaults by the world\u2019s tyrants, was\u00a0governed by the sturdy rule of law rather than the arbitrary whims of rulers, elected fundamentally decent even if ideologically misguided men to the White House, and gradually expanded rather than\u00a0sadistically abolished opportunity for the world\u2019s neediest.<\/p>\n

But suddenly, teaches this fairy tale as ominous music plays in the background, a villain unlike any we had previously known\u00a0invaded our idyllic land, vandalized our sacred public spaces, degraded our\u00a0admired halls of power, threatened our collective values.\u00a0It was only upon Trump\u2019s assumption of power\u00a0that the\u00a0nation\u2019s noble aspirations were repudiated\u00a0in favor of a far darker and more sinister vision, one wholly alien to \u201cWho We Are\u201d: a profoundly \u201cun-American\u201d\u00a0tapestry of\u00a0plutocracy, kleptocracy, autocracy, xenophobia, racism, elite lawlessness, indifference and even aggressive cruelty toward the most vulnerable and marginalized.<\/p>\n

This myth is not just false but self-evidently so. Yet it persists, and thrives, because it serves so many powerful interests at once. Most importantly, it exonerates, empowers, and elevates the pre-Trump ruling class, now recast as heroic leaders of the #Resistance and nostalgic symbols of America\u2019s pre-11\/9 Goodness.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot: The Intercept<\/p><\/div>\n

The lie-fueled destruction of Vietnam and Iraq, the worldwide torture regime, the 2008 financial collapse and subsequent bailout and protection of those responsible for it, the foreign kidnapping and domestic rounding up of Muslims, the record-setting Obama-era deportations and whistleblower prosecutions, the\u00a0obliteration\u00a0of Yemen and Libya, the embrace of Mubarak, Sisi, and Saudi despots, the years of\u00a0bipartisan subservience to Wall Street at everyone else\u2019s expense, the full-scale immunity vested on all the elites responsible for all those crimes \u2013 it\u2019s all blissfully washed away as we unite to commemorate the core decency\u00a0of America as George Bush gently hands a piece of candy to Michelle Obama at the funeral of the American War Hero and Trump-opponent-in-words John S. McCain, or as hundreds of thousands of us re-tweet the latest bromide of Americana from the leaders of America\u2019s most insidious security state, spy and police agencies.<\/p>\n

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In NYC to meet with my publisher. Hope leadership book will be useful. Reassuring to see Lady Liberty standing tall even in rough weather. pic.twitter.com\/KIjb29k2Cg<\/a><\/p>\n

— James Comey (@Comey) December 6, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n