11/8/16

For those of you who wonder why Trump won, the answer is clearly in the people the producers of this documentary chose to exemplify the candidates' supporters. Clintons supports were people on the fringe of society, be it illegal immigrants, non-conformists, or people who see themselves as powerless victims or were associated with the media or the government. Trump supporters were hard working families with children who don't expect government entitlements to make their lives successful. And not a single Midwesterner All American type of person was even bothered to be profiled. Real America fought back on 11/8/16. As one liberal said...Trump spoke the language of the people and what America wants to say to the world.

This "documentary" was entertaining and I enjoyed listen to the various viewpoints. The problem is, the "documentary" viewpoints were overwhelmingly one-sided. The movie did show a few Trump supporters but the entire movie was edited and the questions asked were against Trump. In my opinion, a "documentary" should show an unbiased viewpoint and analysis on the topics discussed. I especially did not like how they made the couple from Michigan (if i remember correctly) look bad by only showing a small portion of the conversation they were having when they mentioned Muslims. Additionally, the movie shows the racism and how the Hillary supporters talked down about the other side. The "documentary" showed the producers opinion instead of an unbiased analysis. A problem our entertainment industry has.

I wen't into this doc without knowing anything about the people that filmed it, the people they observed, or any other information about what was covered other than the election. Now, there is no interaction with the observed people by the documentarians, which I respect, but it was pretty obvious there was a message being pushed, which is that there are much less Trump supporters than Clinton supporters and they don't have any real problems to deal with. The documentary follows somewhere between ten and fifteen Clinton supporters and three to five Trump supporters (I can't remember the exact numbers but that's close). Now, right off the bat, that is a flawed portrayal. The MSM will never admit it, but there are more Trump supporters than Clinton supporters when you subtract illegal immigrants (an estimated 2-5 million illegals voted in sanctuary city states like California and New York). Other than that, I didn't have a problem with it because there wasn't direct intervention by the filmmakers, which I can't stress enough as the best thing a documentarian can do.

Watching this doc in 2021 is somewhat like uncovering a time capsule containing moments of the past that I'd wanted to forget. But the more I watched, the more something shifted in me. It was seeing the very normal, very hurt people that voted for trump without the lens of the four years of his presidency. Seeing them before the long list of actions that would drive them to extremes of anger and violence. The film reminded me how much we ALL were tired of the American status quo, tired of politicians who came in with big talk of making things great or change we could believe in and not bringing the goods. America is poorer, more divided and angrier after trump but with 20/20 hindsight, I don't think anyone would have changed their vote.

Some people shake the world to bring about change. Some people shake the world to break it and the only ones who suffer are the ones hanging on to survive. The film captures the parenthetical moment before everything shifted . For some, the air was full of hope and for others (like me) the air was stale with resignation. No matter... for that alone, I'm grateful to be reminded of the time. An excellent piece of historic work.

I read the other reviews here. I did not notice it at the time but agree there may be a slight liberal bias here. Mostly I thought it was just a capture of a cross section of people in America's "election days". The real downfall here is that this movie is so boring. Having no point of view is great for a documentary, to keep their views out of it, but they need to have some kind of point. When I watch a documentary about the 2016 election, I don't really want to watch a guy play a ukulele for 5 minutes and talk about how great his girlfriend is for another 3. It is also quite repetitive. What would make a much more interesting documentary is the story of one of its subjects, for example the well spoken Alabama man who was voting for the first time after just being exonerated after serving 30 years on death row!