WASHINGTON – Filmmaker Michael Moore urged Democratic voters to remember that they are voting for the impeachment of President Trump in the upcoming midterm elections.
“I am optimistic. I have a thread of optimism still in me. I believe we will, in November, see a tsunami of people coming to the polls and after that I hope you, both of you, and the other senators, do their job,” Moore said during a town hall on “Inequality in America: The Rise of Oligarchy and Collapse of the Middle Class” organized by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Monday evening.
“We have a Democrat running in my district in Michigan right now to unseat the Republican,” he added. “I went to hear him speak and the first words out of his mouth were, after he said he was for single-payer healthcare and all these other good things, and that he was an Iraq veteran, he said, I want you to know that in this election you are not electing a member of the House of Representatives. You are electing the jury for the impeachment of Donald J. Trump. Never forget that over these next few months.”
Moore urged the Democratic Party to also provide its “vision” to the voters rather than impeach Trump and go back to the day before he took office.
“If we just get rid of Trump and we just go back to the day before Trump, how are things then, Sen. Warren and Sen. Sanders, with our healthcare, with our job situation, with poverty? I don’t want to go back to that day. We’ve got to move forward and we have to provide that vision and provide that leadership to make that happen,” he said.
Moore said America’s capitalist economic system is not fair.
“These films I make are about a country that’s economic system is unfair, it’s unjust and it’s not Democratic,” he said. “You cannot call this a democracy if the democracy means we just get to go vote, but with the economy if we have no say in this then it’s not a true democracy.”
Moore called on Democratic voters to challenge their party’s leaders.
“We need to challenge people on our own side of the fence to stand up and do their job for the working people of this country,” he said.
Moore praised the teachers in West Virginia for striking.
“They had an amazing victory – the teachers’ strike in West Virginia. This union brought down the state apparatus; it’s 75 percent women in this union and they rose up. And Bernie, I didn’t see hardly anything in the corporate media about this,” he said. “I should know about the West Virginia teachers’ strike and the victory. What an inspiration that would be around the country if you saw people in West Virginia do this. They haven’t had a strike like this in forever.”
Sanders responded, “In a conservative red state, teachers stood up and fought back and won.”
Moore predicted that more working people would strike given the level of greed among the rich. He encouraged young workers to join unions.
“I’ve been waiting, Bernie, for the moment and I think it is coming. It is so crazy, the rich right now, the level of greed, that they think that people are not going to be at the gates. You can only build so many gated communities when people are eventually going say enough,” he said. “Organizing, joining a union, young people, you are going to have to do this.”
Moore recalled the chairman of Goldman Sachs approaching him at the Oscars a few years ago and asking why he attacks the corporation.
“He says to me, ‘Why are you attacking us? We’re Democrats.’ He says to me, ‘We’re Democrats.’ I said I know that. You are the largest single private contributor to President Obama, thank you for that, by the way. You were expecting something. He was like appalled at this,” he said.
Moore told the chairman that it should “bother” him that after the large amount of money Goldman Sachs donates to Democrats, he only has one vote.
“Each of you just have one vote and you know there’s more of us than there are of you – that’s got to frighten you every single night,” Moore said. “You know the only way out of this is with the bucks that you put into this system to make it corrupt, to make it sick – and sooner or later the people aren’t going to take it anymore and that will be the end of it.”
Sanders replied, “Did he make a contribution to your film?”
“No, he did not,” Moore replied, before explaining that representatives from Goldman Sachs were on the board of the studio he wanted to partner with for his next film, so he had to choose a different one.
“They affect me, they affect you, they affect all of us,” he said. “They are everywhere.”
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