Filmmaker, author, and activist Michael Moore has been a powerful progressive voice during the tumultuous Trump years because he has refused to sugarcoat his opinions.
He was one of the few liberal voices convinced that Trump would win in 2016 and, just a few weeks ago, correctly warned that the election will be closer than the polls predict.
“It’s not an accurate count,” the filmmaker told The Hill. “I think the safe thing to do, this is not scientific… whatever they’re saying the Biden lead is, cut it in half, right now, in your head. Cut it in half, and now you’re within the four-point margin of error,” Moore shared, “That’s how desperately close this is.
So it’s encouraging to hear Moore is feeling positive about the future now that Joe Biden has won the presidency. However, that doesn’t mean he’ll be complacent.
Moore published an open letter to Biden on Medium Thursday praising him for his character while pressing him to pursue a progressive agenda.
In the letter, Moore asks Biden to focus on the youth that will inherit his legacy, not the moderates who helped him win.
I see various people trying to take credit for your victory — and using their personal agendas to push you away from the progressive Left and toward the cowardly center which believes that the best way to beat Republicans is to just be a more easily-digestible version of Republicans. They think because Trump got 70 million votes the Democrats should reject Black Lives Matter, AOC, and anything that vaguely sounds like socialism — at a time when the majority of our citizens under the age of 35, according to most polls, prefer the idea of democratic socialism over the greed of modern-day capitalism. Why risk losing them? We need to listen to and understand why they feel this way. They’ve been saddled with crushing student debt and we’ve handed them a planet In the middle of its 6th extinction event as their future.
He also warns Biden to learn from the Obama era by refusing to play nice.
Please do not make the same mistake an otherwise well-meaning President Obama made in his first two years. He wanted everyone to get along. He was willing to compromise on anything. Kumbaya. The Republicans had already decided they were going to block EVERYTHING Obama proposed and that’s exactly what they did for eight long years with a discipline and a ruthlessness we should probably envy.
Moore urges Joe Biden to make a big splash the moment he takes office because the stakes are so high right now.
Charge in on January 20th like FDR on steroids. You have no choice. People are dying! You need to sign executive orders and cajole, demand and shame Congress into action. And GO BIG! Eliminate the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Act! DONE! Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for women! Just one more state needed! DONE! Send in the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to replace the poisoned water pipes! DONE!!
The “Fahrenheit 9/11” filmmaker says a lot of Americans voted for Biden because he embodies the good-natured side of the American character.
I saw you in New Hampshire this year while we were there working for Bernie, and you were doing a campaign stop and there was a restless five-year boy in the front row. His parents were trying to get him to settle down. You stopped and spoke to the boy. “Hey buddy,” you said in a kind but parental way, “if you can hang on and be a good boy for just a little bit, I’ll buy ya an ice cream!” The boy quieted down, you wrapped up and afterward you went over to the boy and his parents and you gave the kid five bucks so his mom and dad could go get him an ice cream cone. And I thought to myself, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen — and then I started to cry because I wanted so much for that piece of America to come back — goofy, kind, and focusing on what’s truly important: a goddamned ice cream cone!
Moore spells out four basic demands that should be Biden’s primary focus.
Health Care is a human right and every American must be covered;
• Everyone must be paid a living wage and all of us must work to eliminate poverty and rebuild our broken middle class;
• The massive and growing gulf between the ultra rich and everyone else must be narrowed — and the wealthy must go back to paying the taxes they should pay;
• Women must be paid the same as men, and no man or government has the right to tell them what they can do or not do with their bodies.
Oh yeah, he also wants a bullet train.
You and I may have our political differences (you like Amtrak trains, I’d like to ride a bullet train from New York to LA in 10 hours!)
The “Bowling for Columbine” director paints a positive picture of what the future can look like if Biden is successful.
What could our lives be like in four years or eight years (with a Democratic Senate to boot)? How ’bout no one ever goes bankrupt again because they got sick? How ’bout no one is sitting in a prison cell for possessing marijuana or actual drugs? How ’bout every child gets to go to a great school and every neighborhood has an expanded free library open seven days a week? How ’bout paid family medical leave so you can take care of your elderly parents and not lose your job?
Moore appeared on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” Thursday night where he celebrated the election results and talked about his newfound hope. He also explained why he’d never make a documentary about the Trump presidency.
“I would not make that film in part because who would want to watch a film that showed you the last four years? The worst thing I could do to people is show them the last four years,” he admitted.
A big reason Moore feels positive is that the new administration gives Americans the opportunity to “redeem ourselves.”
“Our new president and vice president are going to do things, are going to be there for people,” he told Colbert.
Moore was also pleased that Biden told the Pope he was going “to make America a welcoming place for people, for refugees, for the have-nots. And the have-nots here are going to the primary focus.”
Moore sees Biden’s ability to forgive Kamala Harris for her attacks in the Democratic debates as an example of the “moral compass” that will help to usher in a new era of American politics.
“This is such a positive sign for me that we are going to be in the polar opposite era than the four years we just went through,” Moore said.
Colbert agreed, saying that although America still has the same problems it had two weeks ago, it now has a president “who is going to embody some of the principles — religious or not — that we need as a moral example for all of us to get along.”
