Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/11/americas-last-president.html
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No comments yet, really?
I was certain there would at least be one or two disparaging entries about Moore, from either ‘brand new’ (or long dormant) members…
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Moore was always a better comedian than documentarian. But I will say that conservatives have not come close to matching him in terms of effective political preaching and providing an entertaining film.
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Who is the intended audience of this movie: the people who already hate Trump or the people who adore him no matter what? Or is it some mythical third category: people who have not yet concluded that Trump is terrible, but are capable of being convinced that he is by a Michael Moore documentary?
I’ll go see the movie, because I suspect it’ll be entertaining (I miss TV Nation!), but I have my doubts about its potential to have any real effect on American politics.
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The point of satire isn’t to change people’s minds, it’s to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Trumplethinskin can’t STAND being mocked and it makes him miserable to think that Americans are sitting in movie theaters roaring with derisive laughter directed at him. And for we who suffer under his blitzkreig for evil fuckery, a laugh – especially a shared one – is balm in Gilead that fortifies us for the real work for ending his shithole regime.
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I’ll bite.
He’s the left’s embarrassing uncle. He’s kinda like a racist uncle, in that he likes to talk conspiracy and considers himself an iconoclast, but when we give him a hard time, it’s not so mean-spirited.
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You’re too well known in the community for that to count, though; sorry.
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Hey, it’s 5 a.m. over here right now, I just got up…
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I agree with this.
I have to dispute your definition of satire’s mission. I agree that satire is (like journalism*) capable of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, but isn’t it also capable of changing some people’s minds? I believe it is, and therefore I believe it’s possible to intend to use satire for that purpose (but yeah, I see your point about this particular satire). Anyway, the essence of and uses for satire are among those topics that literature professors can spend careers arguing with each other about, so please don’t be offended that I’m not 100% agreeing with you about it.
ETA:
* “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward. They ain’t annything it don’t turn its hand to fr’m explainin’ th’ docthrine iv thransubstantiation to composin’ saleratus biskit”
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They’re shooting some of that ridicules dash cam footage of people driving wherever they want or admiring footage of their president without his shirt wrestling brown bears.
They’ll be along.
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I, for one, appreciate that Michael Moore made this film and I look forward to seeing it.
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The only problem with that is that there’s nothing anyone could say about trump that’s funny to me. At least that’s been the case so far.
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I love Michael Moore’s lumbering stalk. He gets a lot of menace in to movement.
I’ll bite 
Michael Moore is a skillful filmmaker. His films are always entertaining. But he’s about as trustworthy as Fox News.
I’m not sure what your basis for saying that his films are composed of lies is. Can you give examples of falsehoods in his movies? There’s a difference between exaggeration for comic effect (as he does in the cartoon segments of many of his movies) and the actual facts he lays out.
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There’s a difference between exaggeration for comic effect and exaggeration for rhetorical effect. Moore’s exaggeration often falls into this trap, which undermines his message.
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Oh thats what he does 
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Ok, I’ll rewatch some of his movies. Maybe I was wrong about the amount of falsehoods. My takeway from Fahrenheit 9/11 was that is very propaganda-like and skirted the edges of truth a bit more than I liked, but i has been a long time.
Oh, he’s absolutely a huckster, but his movies that I’ve seen have a certain rhythm:
• Present a series of facts, usually as news clips and talking-head quotes, building to a point
• Supplement with a goofy retro-ish cartoon
• Stage a ridiculously over-the-top display for attention, often cringeworthy and embarrassing, such as the guy with bullets in him going to Kmart to “get a refund on them”, sticking pictures of dead kids in Charlton Heston’s mailbox, or watering politicians’ lawns with Flint water.
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Michael Moore has been credibly accused of misleading editing but I’ve never seen an example of outright lying in any of his films.
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