![]() ![]() The film calls the riot in Charlottesville, Virginia – where racists and anti-Semites chanted filthy, violent slogans and ended up causing three deaths, after which Trump refused to criticize them (“very fine people on both sides”) – “a moment that would foreshadow what was to come.” Longtime Republican and conservative pundit Bill Kristol, who ended up campaigning against Trump, says in the film that Republicans in Congress told him that they would be able to manipulate Trump so he wouldn’t do anything too weird, then adding: “But it turned out he would be the one doing the manipulating.” But, as you know, even though he lost the popular vote (which he never acknowledged in any way) Trump won the electoral vote in 2016 and became president. And Cruz, to his eternal disgrace, later joined the campaign to elect Trump, as a surrogate speaker (but not to hold Trump’s jacket).Īccording to the film, Trump had been prepared (and talked about doing so) to declare in 2016, if he had lost, that the election had been rigged. But even that was enough to get the Trump crowd booing and calling for him to get off the stage. In the end, Cruz pulled his punches, saying publicly only that “we deserve leaders who stand for principle…” without specifying to whom he was referring. ![]() Referring to his unwillingness to get on board, Cruz told aides, “History isn’t kind to the man who holds Mussolini’s jacket.” I’m not sure if that was original to Cruz, but I like it. But he told people that he would refuse to endorse the nominee, Trump, who had insulted Cruz’s wife as, let’s say, unattractive. Ted Cruz of Texas was entitled to a speaking slot at the convention. Still waiting for that evidence.)Īs the runner-up for the 2016 Republican nomination, Sen. ![]() We are not a democracy” (and specified, without evidence, that voting machines were programmed to switch Romney votes to Obama. We need something stronger.īut wait, still more: In 2012 (this is all in the Frontline film), when Democrat-turned-Republican Trump backed Mitt Romney against Barack Obama, and although Romney graciously conceded, Trump tweeted: “This election is a total sham and travesty. It was a fraud as far as I’m concerned.”īut then (the film reminds you), before his ambition turned to the presidency, when his reality TV show “The Apprentice” lost an Emmy (in the stupid show category, I assume) to “The Amazing Race,” he claimed that the Emmy vote was “rigged.” I don’t think the term “poor loser” captures this guy. But he immediately tweeted that it had been stolen, telling interviewers: “Everything about it was disgraceful. In case you don’t recall (but “Lies, Politics and Democracy” will refresh your memory), Trump lost the first contest in the race for the 2016 Republican nomination, the Iowa caucuses. I’m a septuagenarian, born in the second-to-last last year of Harry S Truman’s presidency, so Trump was my 13 th president. Maybe “existential threat” from the quote above is a bit much, but maybe not. What are the odds he’ll claim it on his deathbed? An existential threat to American Democracy.”Īs recently as last week (and I don’t doubt Trump will extend his love affair with this particular pile of horse manure into next week, next month and next year) Trump still claimed to have won the 2020 election. “It was the lie that sparked an insurrection. Frankly we did win this election…” until the narrator clarifies what you really already know, thus: We were getting ready to win this election. “This is an embarrassment to our country. The film, directed by Michael Kirk, opens with footage of a long string of losing presidential candidates since the dawn of the TV age graciously conceding and congratulating their opponents, until it comes to Trump declaring of the election he had just lost that: If possible, we should all save a copy and rerun it in future presidential election years to make sure we remember what happened in 2020 and take measures to prevent any recurrence of this epic shit-show from threatening our little experiment in democratic self-governance again. The documentary is two hours long, and a lot of it is stuff you already know, although there’s likely to be some facts or ideas in there that will be new to you.īut the film is as honest and accurate and chilling as you can imagine. democracy in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s SOLID victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election and Trump’s efforts to overturn it (which are still going on – he’s recently called for the election to be rerun – ? – but going nowhere). It’s especially about his attempted despoliation of U.S. It’s titled “Lies, Politics and Democracy.”Īs you may have guessed from the title, it’s about Donald Trump, the biggest liar in recent (and perhaps in all of ) U.S. The newest documentary by the great PBS “Frontline” outfit premieres Tuesday night at 9 p.m. ![]()
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