Culture

Michael Moore Breaks Down His Theory Of How Clinton Lost The Midwest To Stunningly Clear Effect

Michael Moore, who is everywhere right now, predicted Trump’s victory in eerie, painstaking detail in July. On Thursday night, he offered the Democrats some 2020 advice they’d be wise to consider. And on Friday morning, he popped into MSNBC’s Morning Joe for what was supposed to be a 7-minute segment. Instead, Joe shut down all commercial breaks and kept Moore talking for a full 45 minutes. This was no ordinary talk show appearance, so it’s worth an examination. These top two clips break down the multiple reasons why Moore believes Clinton lost the Midwest, and one extra clip gives a preview of what we might expect from the coming months.

Above, Moore places the blame for Clinton’s Michigan loss partially upon President Obama (though later, he explains another key root cause). Way back in May, the president visited the beleaguered city of Flint and sipped filtered water during a photo op. All of this happened as part of Obama’s effort to reassure Flint citizens about a public health catastrophe that was largely the fault of Republican Governor Rick Snyder and his administration. However, Obama’s move backfired, and Moore says this was a terrible mistake that contributed to Clinton’s 11,000 ballot loss in Moore’s home state. The poor Democratic turnout in several traditionally blue states was amplified here, and Moore believes he knows why:

“[Obama] showed up to Flint five months ago and drank the water when it was still not fixed. The pipes are still not replaced! He drank the water to say, ‘It’s all okay, everyone.’ And it was like a knife in the heart of the people of Flint.” Moore believes Michigan held that grudge and took it out on the Democratic ticket. 90,000 Michiganders voted for every office and every ballot proposal on both sides of the ballot — and refused to vote for president. They were not going to vote for Trump … but they had refused to participate in a system that had left them forgotten.”

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(As a side note, the Flint water crisis has carried on for over two years with no permanent solution forthcoming. On Thursday, a judge ordered the city to provide bottled water to residents until those pipes are replaced.)

With Michigan squared away, Moore explains why the most of the Midwest fell to Trump, which is a very simple reason that could very well be true. Moore alludes to Trump’s ubiquitous “Make America Great” again ball caps, which he says spoke to a “Middle-America thing.” Moore called out a previous Morning Joe panel that had laughed themselves silly over a Trump expense report, which revealed how ball caps were the campaign’s single-greatest expense during one month. He said that was a damning misfire by the media:

“I looked at that and thought, ‘Wow. There’s the bubble right there. They don’t understand.’ This is where we’re from, and this is where I live. And to make fun of … we wear ball caps. And to borrow a Dylan line, ‘The country I come from is called the Midwest.’ This “Middle-America thing,’ and the reason why they have this anger towards the media, this kind of elitist thing … I’m just saying though, [they thought] that was laughable that they weren’t spending money on getting new polls: ‘They have no ground game!’

“Are you kidding me? First of all, the ground game has occurred over the last 30 years. This did not turn people into Republicans because it started with Ronald Reagan, in Flint, in Detroit, where people lost tens of thousands of jobs. And their lives were decimated, and they were kicked out of the middle class. When Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, and the other unions didn’t stand up and do anything, that was the end right there.”

Moore’s explanation requires a little extra information to completely gel. Michigan voters did turn out for Obama much more than they did for Clinton, so the Dems didn’t become apathetic voters until recently. Moore believes that Trump’s ball caps — combined with mainstream media’s contempt for the beloved accessory and Obama’s water-drinking actions in Flint — created Midwest losses for Clinton. As this election showed, Trump proved himself to be adept at capturing the hearts and wallets of blue collar workers. That a self-professed billionaire was able to accomplish this feat shows just how hard the media and pollsters dropped the ball. (And there were probably some Bernie Sanders supporters holding out too.)

In this third segment, Moore predicts that the anti-Trump protests by Democrats will only grow in size, and we’ll see the “largest demonstration ever” on Inauguration Day. ” He understands that Clinton and Obama had a duty to move forward with transition obligations and present a unified front. However, Moore points out that “their duty is different than our duty,” and that these overnight protests will not stop. He stated, “We are going to resist, we are going to oppose” with every cabinet appointment like Rudy Giuliani and every Supreme Court nomination. Moore predicts that this will be a “massive resistance” that will continue as long as Trump remains president.

(Via MSNBC & New York Times)