While some of the most consequential midterm elections, including the senate races between Mandela Barnes and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, are seemingly too close to call — creating anxiety for both Republicans and Democrats nationwide — Oscar-winning documentarian and surprisingly accurate political prognosticator Michael Moore doesn’t think Dems should be worried.
Way back in July 2016, when many people saw the race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as nothing more than a joke, he warned Americans that Trump was on track to take the presidency — and, unfortunately, was right. Now, despite the anxiety-inducing poll numbers, Moore has been predicting a blue “tsunami” in the midterms for months. But even as some key races have seemed to tighten, the Bowling for Columbine filmmaker is sticking to his original prediction.
As The Guardian reports, Moore is continuing to send out a daily email titled “Mike’s Midterm Tsunami of Truth,” which each day offers the filmmaker’s latest dose of reasoning and encouragement to get out and vote. While Moore himself refers to his daily newsletter as “a brief, honest daily dose of the truth—and the real optimism these truths offer us,” The Guardian contends that these positive briefings “fl[y] in the face of most political punditry, which sees a Republican win on the cards.”
In one of his newsletters, The Guardian notes, Moore broaches the idea of “political fatalism,” or the belief — largely pushed by the media — that the party currently in power often doesn’t fare well in midterm elections. “The effect of this kind of reporting can be jarring,” writes Moore. “It can get inside the average American’s head and scramble it. You can start to feel deflated. You want to quit. You start believing that we liberals are a bunch of losers. And by thinking of ourselves this way, if you’re not careful, you begin to manifest the old narrative into existence.”
In case you thought that this was possibly just a publicity stunt to rile up support for an upcoming movie or book, Moore set the record straight: “I’m 68 and I don’t have time to mess around,” he told The Guardian. “I’m deadly serious.”
Moore does warn, however, that his positive prediction does have at least one important naysayer. “The biggest hurdle to what I’m doing with the series is the Democratic party,” he says, especially if you’ve ever witnessed a debate that did not exactly go your candidate’s way. “It’s very disheartening and it would make even me question how we’re going to pull this off. The Democratic party consultants are feeding lines that are so lame and weak. They don’t go for the jugular like a Republican would. It doesn’t inspire people at home.”
“We stand here on the precipice of a very important election and our greatest enemy could be the Democratic party itself,” Moore concluded. So: Don’t be that guy.
(Via The Guardian)