2/ His films are consumed largely by people already inclined to agree with him. Moore knows this, & he supplies his audience w/red meat. He's not interested in making an actual argument, which makes his work unconvincing. Is he changing any minds, really? And if not, why bother?
3/ Like, in his terrible gun movie, HE MADE ME FEEL SYMPATHY FOR CHARLTON HESTON! I didn’t think that was possible, but Moore managed, because he acts like such an asshole in the interview. Even as propaganda, the film is a fail.
4/ His attack on Biden is a classic Moore "argument." He’s glommed on to the “young people vote” idea, which was just shown to be BS on Super Tuesday. Not only that, Moore CONDESCENDS to young voters by implying they are too dumb to understand how a two-party system works.
5/ When Moore writes something like this, what he’s really doing is giving “young people,” or anyone else, cover to not vote for Biden. This was bonkers on Super Tuesday, but in the Age of Quarantine, when Trump is actively trying to kill us? It makes Michael Moore a traitor.
One more thing: Moore’s work is as sloppy as his appearance. The choice to dress like a slob is a show of disrespect, a f—k you to The System, The Man, or whatever. He wants us to think he’s anti-establishment and cool, rather than just a slovenly jerk.
[END]
PS
Michael Moore predicting a Trump victory in 2016 would have been more impressive if he hadn't been in contact with Julian Assange, a cut-out for Russian intelligence, before making that bold prognostication.
Very specific:
'"I know that [the Trump campaign] are planning to focus on Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. That's how he can win the election," Moore said. "If he can get those upper kind of Midwestern-type states, then he can pull it off."' businessinsider.com/michael-moore-…
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On January 19, 2021, in the last hours of his presidency, Donald Trump wrote a memo in which he announced that the “binder of materials” received from the FBI via the DOJ a month prior was “declassified to the maximum extent possible.”
This was less than a week after Trump’s second impeachment—just 13 days after his MAGA horde besieged the Capitol in a failed attempt to thwart the peaceful transition of power.
Trump’s presidential Sharpie was busy that morning. On January 19, 2021, he issued pardons for, among many others: Steve Bannon, Elliott Broidy, Jeanine Pirro’s ex-husband Alex, and the disgraced art dealer Helly Nahmad, who had run an illegal gambling operation at Trump Tower.
Elaborating on #DebateNight thoughts that I shared on last night's Five 8 show.
[THREAD]
1/ Why the Dem freakout after the debate? We are all traumatized by 2016, and Biden's performance in the debate triggered our collective trauma. "No! Not again!" Hence the panic.
2/ Where does the panic come from? Is it fear that Joe can't do the job? No. Because we know he can. He's done it for 3.5 years at the highest possible level. The government is in good hands with Joe/Kamala. No worries there. None.
Alito's comments here are similar to remarks made by Rev. C. John McCloskey, Opus Dei priest and spiritual godfather to the Catholic extremist Leonard Leo cabal, to Charles Pierce 21 years ago. He, too, regarded the so-called culture wars as a Manichean struggle.
"Do I think it’s possible for someone who believes in the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of life...to choose to survive w/ people who think it’s OK to kill women & children or for—quote—homosexual cpls to exist and be recognized? No, I don’t think that’s possible,” he said.
"But, unfortunately, in the past, these types of things have tended to end this way. If American Catholics feel that’s troubling, let them. I don’t feel it’s troubling at all.”
Like many leaders of the reactionary right—Mike Johnson, Mike Davis, Stephen Miller, and so on—the current head of the Heritage Foundation has a dull, forgettable name: Kevin Roberts.
[THREAD]
2/ Roberts has a winsome smile, a PhD in U.S. history, a background in academia, & a well-earned reputation as a nice guy. Who could have imagined that this bright, friendly Gen Xer would be leading a Christian conservative counter-reformation—a crusade to end American democracy?
3/ In 2013, Roberts, who is Catholic, became the second president of Wyoming Catholic College, a strict, almost monastic institution est. in 2007 that provides “a rigorous immersion in...the spiritual heritage of the Catholic Church”—and that will throw you out if you hook up.
If action is character, as F. Scott Fitzgerald proposed, then it is instructive to look at the life of Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson in reverse, Benjamin Button style. . .
[THREAD]
1/ It is the night before Veteran’s Day, 2021. On his primetime Fox News program, Tucker Carlson argues that the U.S. should back Russia, and not Ukraine, in the escalating conflict between the two countries. “Why would we take Ukraine’s side and not Russia’s side?”
2/ He insists that choosing Putin’s dictatorship over Zelensky’s democracy is a no-brainer because of “energy reserves.” This is either breathtaking ignorance of the region’s history or straight-up Kremlin propaganda. Or, I suppose, both.