A Spectre Haunting American Socialism

"I think WikiLeaks and I think Assange, they're essentially anarchists and they know, just like a lot of people voting for Trump know, that he's their human Molotov cocktail and they want to blow up the system. It's an anarchic move."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-maher-and-michael-moore-turn-on-julian-assange-i-feel-like-hes-drifted

I've a lot more free time now, and one of the things I've been using to fill it up is re-watching Michael Moore documentaries. His latest one Fahrenheit 11/9 is probably his best, of the ones I've seen at least. I've read several of his books and watched a number of his films but I haven't encountered them all. I was initially surprised when looking him up that he describes himself as a socialist. While he's left of the American mainstream he seemed to me to be firmly in the American Democratic party fold. One of his films, Slacker Uprising is about all his work to get students to vote for John Kerry in 2004 to pick an example. 

And the most radical filmed of his I had seen until 11/9 was Capitalism a Love Story, which ends with Moore singing the praises of FDRs New Deal and the post war constitutions of known bastions of socialism Italy, Japan and West Germany, and laments that the New Deal wasn't maintained nor the achievement of the constitutional overhaul of the USA. 

In 11/9 he uses the word socialism a lot and finally seems ready to take on the Democratic party as an institutional force. Much of the run time is focused on the shady dealings of the party leadership and their running of the 2016 primaries, and President Obama, who had also received praise in Capitalism a Love Story is denounced for many of his actions, including his response to the Flint Michigan water crisis. However Moore still seems to be struggling to free himself from the party machine.

A section of the film documents and argues quite convincingly that the party establishment essentially rigged the leadership election in favour of Hillary Clinton in some states, specifically West Virginia. Moore and some Democrat party workers from West Virginia deduce from this manoeuvre that since the party went ahead and ignored their members wishes, this completely demoralised the party base in that state and handed West Virginia to the Republicans. And since similar tactics were used in other states this essentially cost them the election. All because they didn't want Bernie Sanders to be the nominee. There's footage of Sanders announcing at the DNC that Clinton has the nomination, and he's clearly very angry, and who can blame him? 

But in response to this powerful bloc of political racketeers Moore looks for hope from a new group of politicians, more grass roots based and populist. He interviews several, and the talk is good, they come across as genuinely wanting to fix the many social and economic problems of American society. They're aren't preaching international revolution so they don't really interest me, but they do seem to be much better than the typical American political choices like

I can definitely see why they're appealing to people essentially bombarded with constant propaganda from these two coalitions of ghouls*. I especially liked Richard Ojeda the man running for congress in West Virgina, he seems very passionate and well aware of how disgusting the system is. "Elected leaders in our towns, in our states, in our country, absolutely are self-serving. They have no idea of what it's like for a single parent to put food on the table for her child." Wikipedia tells me that he didn't win and that he is a retired major. There's just one problem though, they're running or have been elected as Democrats. 

Its one thing to point out serious problems within an organisation, but by running as candidates for that organisation they're just maintaining its power.  Assuming they get into office and do most of what they campaigned on, then all that's happening is that their hard work will be used to maintain goodwill and the support of those communities. 

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is interviewed "I believe that in a modern moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live." and so are several others who have gone on to show themselves to have adapted pretty well to party. Bernie Sanders after essentially being robbed of his chance to be supreme despot of the earth in 2016 campaigned for Clinton and the very people he had attacked and denounced during his campaigning, and then registered again as a Democrat in 2020 for another go. 

"We're not ready to give up on the party, we're just ready to take it over."

Rashida Tlaib

During this sequence another new "Insurgent candidate" Levi Tillemann who ran in Colorado. Tilleman was considered the radical choice with party leaders throwing their weight and money behind a more moderate opponent, and pressured him to drop out. Tillemann recorded some of the conversations and part of that is in the film. But Tilleman lost, and Hoyer the man who actively pressured him to drop out is still in Congress and a powerful Democrat politician. 

Throughout this segment on the "Democratic revolution" Moore repeatedly lambasts the moderate Democratic establishment, but curiously most of his objections revolve around the party losing elections. He keeps accusing them of pursuing a strategy doomed to fail, and by contrast the main thing these new "insurgents" have is that they have the potential to tap back into their communities and win races again.

That's a really mercenary way of looking at things, and a really superficial political analysis. For example Tilleman is a businessman, and is employed by a think tank and worked for the Obama administration that is being raked over the coals in other parts of this film for its betrayals. Richard Ojeda whose segments I really like for his rhetoric has stated that in 2016 he voted for Donald Trump, is a conservative on most social issues (he didn't elaborate on what that meant) and that he supports strong border security.

“When you hear about illegal aliens getting benefits and you have people here starving to death and can’t get nothing, it’s just a slap in the face,” Ojeda said in a New Yorker interview. “When you start talking about bringing in refugees and when they get here they get medical and dental and they get set up with some funds—what do we get? So when people hear Donald Trump saying we’re going to take benefits away from people who come here illegally and give them to people who work, that sounds pretty good."

Aside from populist policy stances, many of these new insurgents either failed to win in the face of opposition or appear to have made their peace with the rest of the party when taking their seats. Moore can't even point to an attempt by these new grass roots democrats to oust some of the establishment figures from their positions, never mind an attempt to push the party overall in a more radical orientation. 

Like Capitalism a Love Story there are glimmers of a better way shown in 11/9. Part of the film is dedicated to the West Virginia teachers strike. He also includes snippets of a speech by Richard Ojeda at a rally in support of the strike. But that was a situation where the politician is catching up to the initiative of workers. Looking him up further he's sometimes described as a leader of the strike, and is credited with early advocacy of labour rights and introducing several bills to raise pay and conditions for teachers before the strike. Those bills failed of course, he is also credited by some as the reason the state agreed to a 5% pay increase, but I don't know, I think paralysing the entire state and threatening to spread it to the rest of the nation was a more effective argument for a partial climbdown. And Moore in fairness expresses the view that the strike was threatened by a compromise foisted on the union by its unresponsive and counterproductive leadership. 

"The Union leadership had sold out. They got the teachers less than what they wanted, and had left the bus drivers and lunch ladies out in the rain."

The strike segment also briefly discusses the 1920 coal miners strike and revolt, where armed bands of miners wearing red bandana's fought the state militia, the pit bosses and the United States military. There is good information in this film and I'm pleased its getting some popular appreciation, but I find myself asking what is the point?

There are only so much resources and time and energy. You cannot run an effective campaign for office, whilst sustaining a massive strike and planning an armed insurrection. Overall there seems to be an accidental theme of this film, "direct action gets the goods" only for Moore, the goods seem to be political candidates and populists in power. Many of the democrat candidates featured in the film describe being inspired and motivated by the Women's March on Washington, which took place shortly after Tump became president. This mass movement of lots of ordinary people standing up for principles resonated with them, and they channelled that into running for office. 

"When working class people come together and say "we're not leaving until you give us what we want," there's no money or anything more powerful than that. And that's why politicians have since the beginning of this country, they have tried to divide people by race or gender. And so the Republicans do it, but you know what the Democrats do it too."

 Krystal Ball

This is from a powerful segment that shows the spread of the teachers strikes. After that it moves on to documenting the pushing for gun control laws by students. He's very impressed with what these children are able to organise, and in terms of mobilisations it is very impressive. And so was the bit where they successfully pressured a hostile politician to drop out of their bid for re-election in an unopposed race.

This film is quite frustrating, Moore does a fairly good job of illustrating some of the many failures of electoralism and how the Democratic party is a hindrance and not an ally. And covers three possible paths forward, workplace militancy, grass roots mobilisation and better candidates. Of the three he seems to be equally impressed and excited, and so just essentially spends time agitating for all three. The problem is they just aren't equal, many of the populist Democrats lose or mostly conform, the mobilisations can sometimes intimidate the political establishment into making some concessions, but it just isn't sustainable, the March for Our Lives and anti school shootings and the Women's March have made limited impacts and have faded. they're aren't gone completely but they no longer have the presence they once had. The other option, worker militancy often in spite of or outright against their union leaderships has been growing, and of the three is the one that has made the most material impact.

But Moore treats them as equal and conjoined, and he doesn't even do much work to connect the dots. The information about Richard Ojeda having some connections to the teachers strike was stuff I found by looking him up. In the film all we get is snippets of him turning up to pro strike protests. In my notes I had it written down "typical coat tail chasing poli" because 11/9 makes it look like he's racing down there to get his face in the cameras.

Ultimately I guess 11/9 is his best work, but there's still much room for improvement.

"The America I want to save, is the America we never had."

Edit: Shortly after writing this Bernie Sanders officially conceded the 2020 race and endorsed Joe Biden, after months of his campaign denouncing him and exposing some of his greatest personal and political failings.

*I can't remember where, but I did once read that an American living in a key battleground state is subjected to more targeted propaganda in a single election year than the population of Beijing during the entirety of the Cultural Revolution.