By Michael Moore
[…]
Midwest Math, or Welcome to
Our Rust Belt Brexit. I believe Trump is going to focus much of his
attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes –
Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic
states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only
Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in
March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million)
that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest
polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this
close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s
said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the
industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on
this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed
the people of these four states. When Trump stood in the shadow of a Ford Motor
factory during the Michigan primary, he threatened the corporation that if they
did indeed go ahead with their planned closure of that factory and move it to
Mexico, he would slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built cars shipped back to
the United States. It was sweet, sweet music to the ears of the working class
of Michigan, and when he tossed in his threat to Apple that he would force them
to stop making their iPhones in China and build them here in America, well,
hearts swooned and Trump walked away with a big victory that should have gone
to the governor next-door, John Kasich.
From Green Bay to Pittsburgh,
this, my friends, is the middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the
smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to
call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who
were lied to by the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still
try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with
a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving
the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here. Elmer
Gantry shows up looking like Boris Johnson and just says whatever shit he can
make up to convince the masses that this is their chance! To stick to ALL of
them, all who wrecked their American Dream! And now The Outsider, Donald Trump,
has arrived to clean house! You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even
have to like him! He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the
center of the bastards who did this to you! SEND A MESSAGE! TRUMP IS YOUR
MESSENGER!
And this is where the math
comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral
votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump
needs to do to win is to carry, as he’s expected to do, the swath of
traditional red states from Idaho to Georgia (states that’ll never vote for
Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs these four rust belt states. He
doesn’t need Florida. He doesn’t need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan,
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is
how it will happen in November.
The Last Stand of the Angry
White Man. Our male-dominated, 240-year run of the USA is coming to an end. A
woman is about to take over! How did this happen?! On our watch! There were
warning signs, but we ignored them. Nixon, the gender traitor, imposing Title
IX on us, the rule that said girls in school should get an equal chance at
playing sports. Then they let them fly commercial jets. Before we knew it,
Beyoncé stormed on the field at this year’s Super Bowl (our game!) with an army
of Black Women, fists raised, declaring that our domination was hereby
terminated! Oh, the humanity!
That’s a small peek into the
mind of the Endangered White Male. There is a sense that the power has slipped
out of their hands, that their way of doing things is no longer how things are
done. This monster, the “Feminazi,”the thing that as Trump says, “bleeds
through her eyes or wherever she bleeds,” has conquered us — and now, after
having had to endure eight years of a black man telling us what to do, we’re
supposed to just sit back and take eight years of a woman bossing us around?
After that it’ll be eight years of the gays in the White House! Then the
transgenders! You can see where this is going. By then animals will have been
granted human rights and a fuckin’ hamster is going to be running the country.
This has to stop!
The Hillary Problem. Can we
speak honestly, just among ourselves? And before we do, let me state, I
actually like Hillary – a lot – and I think she has been given a bad rap she
doesn’t deserve. But her vote for the Iraq War made me promise her that I would
never vote for her again. To date, I haven’t broken that promise. For the sake
of preventing a proto-fascist from becoming our commander-in-chief, I’m
breaking that promise. I sadly believe Clinton will find a way to get us in
some kind of military action. She’s a hawk, to the right of Obama. But Trump’s
psycho finger will be on The Button, and that is that. Done and done.
Let’s face it: Our biggest
problem here isn’t Trump – it’s Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70%
of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old
way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you
elected. That’s why she fights against gays getting married one moment, and the
next she’s officiating a gay marriage. Young women are among her biggest
detractors, which has to hurt considering it’s the sacrifices and the battles
that Hillary and other women of her generation endured so that this younger
generation would never have to be told by the Barbara Bushes of the world that
they should just shut up and go bake some cookies. But the kids don’t like her,
and not a day goes by that a millennial doesn’t tell me they aren’t voting for
her. No Democrat, and certainly no independent, is waking up on November 8th
excited to run out and vote for Hillary the way they did the day Obama became
president or when Bernie was on the primary ballot. The enthusiasm just isn’t
there. And because this election is going to come down to just one thing — who
drags the most people out of the house and gets them to the polls — Trump right
now is in the catbird seat.
The Depressed Sanders Vote. Stop
fretting about Bernie’s supporters not voting for Clinton – we’re voting for
Clinton! The polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary
this year than the number of Hillary primary voters in ’08 who then voted for
Obama. This is not the problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that
while the average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to
somewhat reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what’s called a “depressed
vote” – meaning the voter doesn’t bring five people to vote with her. He
doesn’t volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never
talks in an excited voice when asked why she’s voting for Hillary. A depressed
voter. Because, when you’re young, you have zero tolerance for phonies and BS.
Returning to the Clinton/Bush era for them is like suddenly having to pay for
music, or using MySpace or carrying around one of those big-ass portable
phones. They’re not going to vote for Trump; some will vote third party, but
many will just stay home. Hillary Clinton is going to have to do something to
give them a reason to support her — and picking a moderate, bland-o,
middle of the road old white guy as her running mate is not the kind of edgy
move that tells millenials that their vote is important to Hillary. Having two
women on the ticket – that was an exciting idea. But then Hillary got scared
and has decided to play it safe. This is just one example of how she is killing
the youth vote.
The Jesse Ventura Effect.
Finally, do not discount the electorate’s ability to be mischievous or
underestimate how any millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they
draw the curtain and are all alone in the voting booth. It’s one of the few
places left in society where there are no security cameras, no listening
devices, no spouses, no kids, no boss, no cops, there’s not even a friggin’
time limit. You can take as long as you need in there and no one can make you
do anything. You can push the button and vote a straight party line, or you can
write in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There are no rules. And because of that,
and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are
going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like
his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. Just because it will upset the
apple cart and make mommy and daddy mad. And in the same way like when you’re
standing on the edge of Niagara Falls and your mind wonders for a moment what
would that feel like to go over that thing, a lot of people are going to love
being in the position of puppetmaster and plunking down for Trump just to see
what that might look like. Remember back in the ‘90s when the people of
Minnesota elected a professional wrestler as their governor? They didn’t do
this because they’re stupid or thought that Jesse Ventura was some sort of
statesman or political intellectual. They did so just because they could.
Minnesota is one of the smartest states in the country. It is also filled with
people who have a dark sense of humor — and voting for Ventura was their
version of a good practical joke on a sick political system. This is going to
happen again with Trump.
Coming back to the hotel after
appearing on Bill Maher’s Republican Convention special this week on HBO, a man
stopped me. “Mike,” he said, “we have to vote for Trump. We HAVE to shake
things up.” That was it. That was enough for him. To “shake things up.”
President Trump would indeed do just that, and a good chunk of the electorate
would like to sit in the bleachers and watch that reality show.
[…]
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