(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
To vote for a president is a lonely affair. Should one admit to being persuaded, or should one demand more – that is, to be persuaded through case? The world's most important presidential election in recent times – Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton, Obama and now Trump – has to that degree been characterized by emotion. So let's try to look behind the American showbiz:
Our method is to go through a series of documentaries around the presidential campaigns. For what were the presidential candidates' specific programs for a future United States, that is, the political issues to be promoted? Are these issues (or their execution) possible to spot behind rhetorical persuasion art with sparkling charm, sparkling faces and slick handshakes?
The campaigns are not necessarily democracy-promoting. Unfortunately, in the ubiquitous media community we have had since Kennedy, illuminated debate – the prerequisite for a democracy or government – has had to give way to entertainment. The stage lights dazzle, many are fooled and really believe that a more or less charming new leader should help just one himself. This is how Trump, in his latest campaign videos, can suddenly steal William Sanders slogans to help those who are forgotten – something one should never think he can or will do as president. Underpaid workers would like to believe in better times, letting themselves be seduced by the failed American dream. But the reality says something else: Just talk to the hard-working laundry woman at Trump's newest luxury hotel in the remodeled Washington DC Post Office (refurbished for $ 1.8 billion): If we thought the pay was ok? No, she is grossly underpaid.
John F Kennedy. Are then presidents lying about the future they should rule just to reach the oval office? Or have there been many sincere plans that have just proved impossible to implement without Congress and the Senate? Is it just huge campaigns with hope & change as a slogan? Are the campaigns really just shining beyond reality when we wake up the next day?
Let's start the investigation by following John F. Kennedy in the documentary Primary (Robert Drew, 1960) on a campaign tour. His campaign manager says from the back seat of a car: "It's a great dream, the dream of becoming president of The United States!" But the Democrats' primary election is something we clearly see Kennedy dislikes – they are too risky, he says. Something William Sanders can nod to today. In the old black-and-white movie, we see Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts reach out to the voters in Wisconsin in 1960 – but many just ignore him. He signs autographs for little boys. Smiles the famous charming smile.
The filmmakers – with the first shoulder cameras with zoom at the time – will be part of the campaign for five days. The plan was to make a story about a young senator "who did not have a chance". As director Drew stated some years later: Kennedy was considered too Catholic, too rich and "such a one from the East Coast". Some ask in the film if Kennedy considers himself one underdog in the great presidential race. Surprisingly – like the Trump case – the media had no idea what was going to happen.
Behind all the handshakes and smiles you can listen to the following hopes from the presidential candidate in the film: "How can we protect the outbreak of war, how can we protect our security? How can we maintain peace? ” This is the man who went directly against the state leaders' racism against the African American population at the time, as he, as president, deployed the National Guard to protect the blacks. But he got his test, as he states in the film: "These problems would test the best among us." He was later known as a cynical shot and killed to be the best.
Richard M. Nixon. What about Richard M. Nixon? documentary Millhouse: A White Comedy (Emile de Antonio, 1971) shows a candid Nixon. He was known as Republican Vice President (1953-61) and President (1969-74) until he had to retire following the Watergate scandal. And what kind of program did he promote? With pathos, he emphasized the importance of capital punishment, the death penalty needed. And the country needed stricter laws. He also, at every opportunity, built up under the enemy image against those he called "the communists." Did he really pull on the millstone the middle name Millhouse suggests? He was at least subjected to derision, which he openly despised. When he made sure his brother got a favorable loan backstage, he was revealed – but recovered when it looked darkest. Cleverly, he appeared in a short film he made, in which he describes his sober private economy – viewers hear what he has of private loans, how much he earns in Congress, what he gets for his non-political lectures (hear) you, Hillary?), how much he pays in insurance, what he and his wife have to deal with, as well as paying his parents interest on a small loan they have given him. The wife (who worked as a stenographer) did not have a mink coat like the others. He was not corrupt. They had once discovered a puppy on the doormat, which his daughter fell in love with. That gift they kept.
The documentary portrays Nixon on good and evil, like the man who grew up with five brothers. The genus had always been hard-working. Nixon himself worked at his dad's gas station for up to 16 hours of work. Then the sons should be educated.
In the command room were the words "Change versus more of the same", "It's the economy, stupid" and "Don't forget about health care".
The conversations in the film seem honest, even as we then see Nixon meet the press with a completely different seriousness than what we see politicians do today. But what happened when he came into position, after all the campaigns? From speaking for peace and ending the Korean War, we see how Nixon and Kissinger are handling the Vietnam War. One hardliner like today's militarists Clinton & Trump. They are so happy with power that they can probably agree with Nixon's statement in the film: "The worst is atomic war. But worse than that is to surrender. » When asked about the willingness to press the nuclear button, he says: "That weapon will be used in the South Pacific."
Looking more closely at the campaign-related, Nixon was early on to place the camera at arm's length. He wanted to talk directly to people. The film actually comments that he got the camera painted on a face that somehow listened to him. And with the slogans Pride, Self-Respect og Hope – just like slogans like "Make America Great Again" from Trump – we hear the same smear that hard work brings you up. Besides, clearing away the enemies, that is, the Communists, who are to blame for today's misery. Such rhetoric is well known. In the heat campaigns that followed Joseph McCarthy at that time, Nixon blamed the Communists for everything that was anti-American. Now no one should be unemployed – and if anyone had to, it should be the Communists in the former presidential administration! Inflation? No, that was communist talk!
According to a friend of Nixon, he really wanted to be an intellectual first, go to Oxford, and then write historical books. Yes, something a certain prime minister at home should also want instead of becoming a NATO commander? Like Nixon, one can get into situations where one becomes too hard-handed and makes military decisions with very devastating consequences. Because we remember how, in a covert recording, Kissinger answered Nixon when he wanted to use the nuclear bomb – that it would be too much, it wasn't necessary.
Nixon, who in 1964 claimed that his predecessors had Americanized the war in Vietnam, was to "Vietnamize the road to peace". That was not the case when he became president in 1969. The Vietnam War had killed more civilians in 1971 in Nixon in former Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) than ever before in history: One million out of 16 million people were killed that year, and six million were run away.
The difference in presidential speech and reality is also evident when Nixon concludes that when they withdrew from Vietnam, the United States would not maintain any military base, nor would they demand financial compensation from Vietnam for the help they had provided them (!). The only thing they will demand, he says rhetorically, is that the South Vietnamese themselves should freely choose the path further, without other countries interfering. As we hear in the film, Nixon states that as the most powerful of the world's free countries, they could have conquered others, but did not – no matter how proud they might be of their own military forces. Rather, it was about maintaining peace and freedom – this was America willing to sacrifice a lot to provide.
A good speaker does not necessarily speak true. The film ends with the 1970s major anti-Vietnam demonstrations against Nixon.
BillClinton. Is the lessons from these examples enough? No. Closer to our time, Bill Clinton's campaigns are portrayed in the two films The War Room (Chris Hegedus & DA Pennebaker, 1993) and The Return of the War Room (H&D, 2008). They are clear on how presidential campaigns use the media in a new way. The metaphor "The War Room" was invented by Hillary Clinton, according to the campaign leader in the film.
As it was today, the following applies – as written on the wall in the War Room: "Change versus more of the same", "It's the economy, stupid" and "Don't forget about health care". Also, the "Don't forget the debate" trailer – Clinton was good at winning voters. And his stated arguments? Well, that more people should get better jobs, pay less for health care and that more children should go to better schools. He wanted to change – change – landed at something better than what the US was before him: "Twelve years of trickle down economics, where the US has gone from number one to twelve in the world of wages. In four years, US has produced no private sector jobs – so most people are working harder for less money than ten years ago. » No wonder they wanted Clinton. The poor should get better.
In the command center, they had to be equipped for a revolt fight, says the campaign leaders. If it wasn't enough against the sex stories Republicans dug around Bill Clinton, they still managed to make a comeback kid after such defeat. However, as the Lewinsky case grew, it no longer went ahead. Today, when the Internet exists, anyone on the globe can manage to dig out something that can be used as an attack. As said in the last movie, a War Room is much more needed today than before. However – with Trump's women's stories, who really cares?
It's been a while. The economy is growing under Clinton – with the money gap initiated in the loan markets, where money-printing central banks are sending the debt into the future. People will not listen to the warnings of presidential candidate Ross Perot in 1992.
But as the 2008 documentary says of Clinton: "Oh boy, he screwed up, right off the bat." It was not popular that he would approve of gays in the military. He was also to provide a health program, but did not consult with the health sector whatsoever. Hope for change fell, according to the film, within 100 days. But as pointed out in the movie, The War Room had "a short and glorious life".
Barak Obama. And what about the deputy who preached change? Obama disappointed, too. With the documentary By The People: The Election of Barack Obama (Amy Rice, Alicia Sams, 2009), we see Obama on the campaign path from he was a senator onwards. The incredibly charming presidential candidate got through with a lot of emotion for America and again its hope & changement. But as we know, he promoted war, extra-judicial executions (Nixon's death penalty) and failed to reduce weapons use and nuclear weapons, shut down Guantánamo or introduce any major health reform.
But if he was sincere and just didn't have the two chambers of Congress, many would think he was like Kennedy – intelligent enough to see what should be done, but that the United States he operated in did not allow him to do so. And the movie? It is full of emotion for a charismatic leader; a movie almost without factual arguments about what he should do as president. The film's close-up of the tears flowing where he speaks to the people change & hope is telling enough after the grandmother's death – though not for how to make changes. That hundreds of thousands stood there with small signs with the inscription "change" was tragic when you saw what happened the next eight years. But today, it's probably more for a farce to count than directly tragic – in the same way that Trump brings with him many Americans who run around with caps that say "Make America Great Again".
Donald Trump. Finally, let me mention two campaign-critical films from this year's presidential debate: The Choice, where Robert Reich says "Hillary got very involved in the campaign. For all intents and purposes, she was the campaign manager. She completely forfeited her own identity, at least physically, got rid of the glasses, got her hair dyed… ”We are talking here about the woman who coined the term" The War Room ". Timothy O'Brien (TrumpNation), on the other hand, states that Trump went from being foolish all joking about due to his evictions and bankruptcies in the 1980s. With 14 seasons of the television program The Apprentice ("The Apprentice") he became a celebrity to millions of Americans.
This deceiver, who now became president, tweeted: "To all Americans, I see you & I hear you." Michael Moore's documentary Trump Country came recently. The film is a stage show in which Moore discusses the presidential candidates in a theater with 400 invitees in Ohio. But on the internet, Trump's movie link is actually a modified version (!) Where we hear "And when you vote for Trump, and it will feel good ...". The sequel cut away read "for a day, maybe a week". Moore got to speak on Fox TV, where he said "if you think this is some love poem to Donald Trump, because it's the opposite to that" – but maybe a million viewers had already seen what Trump was spreading.
In the television program Democracy Now Moore tells TV host Amy Goodman that Trump was "music to the ears of people in Brexit states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin ... Trump is the hand grenade people can legally throw at the system that stole their lives." But when they later find out that "Trump wasn't going to do a damn thing for them, it will be too late to do anything about it. Good night America. You've just elected the last president of the United States. "
With weapons. One thing is for sure. The millionaire son, reality star, bankruptcy rider and businessman Trump is yet another president who promises "changes." As a celebrity, with his vulgar appearance, he got over $ 25 billion in free broadcast time to persuade people about this vague message.
With such a president and many Americans who share his values, the United States will with its persuasives arms – military investment should now be increased by more than our oil fund – aimed at us, ask us to swallow the country's vulgarity, populism, racism, homophobia and intolerance. If you are unable to stand outside – as a communist, muslim, mexican, non-white or as freedom-loving anarchist.
