General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Won't vote because of lack of "inspiring candidate".... [View all]JHan
(10,173 posts)Got to mention here that the Media did not really cover Hillary voters who were enthusiastic to vote for her. We either got lukewarm articles, or articles acknowledging support dashed with either antagonistic spin or snark. The net effect was an erasure of her accomplishments which dragged her to Trump's level. I will never forget the major cable news channels opting to cover Trump selling steaks instead of an econ speech by Clinton. This is just one example and not even the worst one I could think of.
I understand why Hayes staged this the way he did, it's to cater to Moore and his themes, not all I agree with. I don't think Moore has yet accepted that the zeitgeist we observed in 2016 wasn't "economic anxiety" but cultural fear and that the one defining feature of American Politics is the pendulum, and the backlash to Obama and all he represented was coming.
Third Party Voters and Non-Voters have nothing to show for their choices and indecision. For third-party voters, they had their chance to engage in a neoliberal experiment, where voting is an expression of consumer identity, now described as "conscience voting". It's a vanity project when you vote in ways which amount to nothing but allows you to brand yourself an iconoclast. Non-voters also disengage for similar reasons, though often it's due to them being low-information.
Voting has morphed into an expression of Self and Personality. And the candidate must cater to "you" and "earn your vote", which means that the candidate must always fill you with bliss and make you feel "inspired"... instead of voting seen as what it actually is - social civic action. One approach focuses on self, the other prioritizes community and best outcomes beyond one's self.
I appreciated Michael Moore delving into people's warped internal Schema of who Hillary in his little-too-late documentary "Trumpland". But beyond Hillary, he could have delved into how disinformation shaped an election, The forces behind this movement and how they target liberal democracies , that they want to turn the clock back 60 years, and how easy it is to weaponize data against individuals because this is the face of future elections.