American Chaos

James Stern, to his credit, displays what a clueless liberal looks like. He is totally detached from the realities that most Americans face and the values they hold across the greater part of this country. He attempts to educate himself, but rather than "listen" as he claim, he cops a condescending attitude toward the religious hard working middle Americans that make up much of America. I though he actually had an "ah ha" moment when he talked to the rancher on Arizona border about the illegal immigration crisis and the realities of illegal border crossing but then defends those who would open American to those not invited or welcome here. People watching this video can, unexpectedlly, reaffirm that America made the right decision in 2016.

Aside for a liberal, black professor, the sympathetic interviewer provides a veritable conveyor belt of one annoying, low-information Trump voter after the other - and encourages each one to express their own personal misconceptions. It's a bit painful to watch and resembled having to watch paint dry - or worse, having to read an Ayn Rand novel from the first page to the last.

Despite the best of intentions by the filmmaker James D. Stern, the interviews of poorly educated republicans - and one happy-go-lucky, rich and overprivileged Floridian fuddy-duddy (James Snot-Nose, the III) - fails to provide any actual 'Aha!' moments. If anything, it cements preconceptions that the presidential election of 2016 was not about wealth and income, but rather the level of education as post-election polls and analysis by FiveThirtyEight indicated.

People lacking a high-school education were the most likely to vote for Trump, while people with doctorate degrees the least likely. The pattern even held true statewide: in 10 of the best educated states Hillary won, while in 9 of the 10 worst educated states Trump won. To summarize, if you ever wanted to know what it looks like when a bunch of people climb up Dunning-Krugers' mount stupid, then have a look at this doc.

Starts off with the myth, the Kennedy lie, a man he worshiped, but who would have been ripped to shreds by the very left he believes today. The Kennedy's were in reality the first beneficiaries of the modern lefts propaganda machine having gained total control of the media system, "Camelot", when the reality drove Marilyn Monroe to suicide. Ted Kennedy even skated by when a woman mysterious drowned in his car, and these were the naifs who were responsible for the reckless 1965 immigration act which changed the country with no consideration to the consequences, and these considerations go unexamined by the left to this day, because its about pure faith, not reason, but pure faith.

And this documentary is testament to that, its value is in documenting the derangement of the left during this time. He's clearly distraught, but doesn't actually know why, because at the end of the day, Trump is to the left of both Kennedy or even Bill Clinton. A man who was pro LGBT before it was politically convenient, a man with Jewish grand children but is still called "racist" and "xenophobic" because the truth is the only thing that has changed is how far the left have lost the plot, they won too much, they gained too much cultural power, and it made them lazy, and corrupt, close minded and frankly intolerant. Questions are now hate speech because of how fragile their ideology has become. Everything is racist, everything is xenophobia, because the reality is that they have become so extreme that they don't believe in enforcing borders at all. Consequences be damned, its not about reason, but faith, so it doesn't matter.

And so they talk endlessly about empathy, but this is simply re-branded virtue signalling at fashionable causes. In one breath "black lives matter", and in the next pushing to divert resources instead to people who shouldn't be here in the first place. How many homeless are in Chicago? Thousands, but the left will walk over their bodies to find fresher "victims" to raise up, because its not about real change, its about appearing virtuous. The left have patted themselves on the back for so long that they just assume they are correct now, always pushing the line about being on the right side of history. But are they really, they speak of sustainability but they can't even sustain their own fertility rates, they don't even care about something as fundamental as the next generation for the continuance of their society, never mind their ideas. So when an alternate narrative comes along pointing out the flaws of the left, they simply cannot deal with it.

And its notable the cost of this virtue is never to be paid by themselves, the demand is always that others be forced to pay for their charity. No one is stopping these billionaire liberals from investing in the inner cities, its very telling that they instead only focus on politics instead.

The lefts fixation on credentialism is highlighted by this films fixation on Hillary Clinton's CV, which was the result of nepotism and objectively unimpressive in accomplishments outside her ability to rack up titles. On the night of her defeat, she abandoned her followers in their moment of confusion and grief, proving just how unqualified for leadership she was, and how flawed the judgement of the left has become. A fact not readily admitted to this very day.

While I give him credit for showing some of the other side of the story, the techniques of propaganda are still evident in this film, the selectiveness of what they show, especially the clips of Trump say it all, but I guess its also the only side the left would see, which makes it accurate in a strange way. Assertions are always made and never questioned, just repeating political talking points with no self reflection. The second amendment is the final guarantor of liberty, the left attacks this while wailing about fascism. The Paris Accords were meant to divert hundreds of billions of dollars at the drop of hat over measures their very own data claimed would do effectively nothing, believing in climate change is irrelevant when you have no viable solution, and the lefts conflating political agendas with science is as dishonest as it gets. People are being mindlessly railroaded into vast expenditures of public money with no actual consideration for the opportunity costs. Everything is inevitable based on their assumptions, which are just presumptions, from outsourcing jobs to whether certain industries were viable when the left were busy rigging the game with subsidies and penalties.

We now live in a world where the "good liberals" of google fired a man over science, and now look to quietly emulate the totalitarian internet censorship of the chinese. They believe themselves to be so right that dissent can only be "hate speech" and "fake news", their arrogance is the real danger, and this documentary documents a slice of the delusion. The left killed religion, the party became their new church, and the the results, the behavior we see are predictable. I say this as a former democrat, the left isn't what they imagine themselves to be. They don't understand the other, because we live in their world, they don't live in ours.

James Stern is an unabashed Obama loving liberal, and he does his best to understand the other side. Where he fails is in giving time to Conservative subject matter experts on policy. Conservatives are portrayed as fear mongering but it's hysterical to see throughout the movie all the fear Stern has if Trump were to win. This alone is worth the price of admission. Yes it's biased but it's the best once could expect from a left gone mad.

As a non US person seeing much good in either party I was hoping for something impartial, like the great film Fail State about the US tertiary education $y$tem. I will be fair the film did give voice and good unedited air time to a range of people and did not try to make them look stupid. I have no doubt the intentions of all involved were good and honest and it showed. I just don't think these same people were able to overcome the structural elephant in the corner that West and East coast elites (ie the people who made this film) don't experience the lives of those in the "fly-over states", which is the heartland of the country- these people once a middle class, now a country with so many 1 to 2 paychecks from a wipeout. I don't think they are mentally capable of grasping the answer to the questions they were trying to find answers for. Obama gave the same hope to millions that Trump did, different side of the same coin. Those people under Obama were left worse off, as I think those hoping Trump will deliver long the structural change will also eventually be worse off. The swamp is as Democrat as it is Republican and doesn't care for anyone but the elites, insiders and donors. I felt the film tried to give an honest voice, but never really wanted to find actual understanding. In that the techniques of propaganda and subtle mocking are still evident in this film. This is part of the problem. It seems to have been produced for fellow lefts/ Democrats. Stern would have done better to not make it so much about him. Louis Theroux would have done a better job. Less myopic, less inherently biased, and bringing no baggage From an entertainment perspective and struggling with these unavoidable biases I give it a 3. From an achieving its objective, even in a shallow kind of way I'll give it a 7 because I think the voices interviewed were entitled to be heard and it still commands a worthwhile place on the shelf of the conversation. If you really want to understand those who voted Trump read the book Deer Hunting with Jesus by the late Joe Bageant. There is a 10 year old interview with him on YouTube titled "LONGVIEW: Deer Hunting With Jesus" which does better in 7 minutes than this film does