Filmmaker Michael Moore on Midterm Elections, the Tea Party, and the Future of the Democratic Party

AMY GOODMAN: What do you make of war not really being mentioned—

MICHAEL MOORE: At all.

AMY GOODMAN:—in this—

MICHAEL MOORE: At all.

AMY GOODMAN:—in this midterm elections.

MICHAEL MOORE: Gone, right.

AMY GOODMAN: The talk shows on Sunday—WikiLeaks, the biggest military intelligence leak in the history of this country, that week the major agenda-setting talk shows on the networks there was no discussion—

MICHAEL MOORE: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN:—of what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.

MICHAEL MOORE: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: And when it’s raised with the hosts, they say, "Because we’re talking about the midterm elections."

MICHAEL MOORE: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Aren’t the elections a referendum on the major policy issues—

MICHAEL MOORE: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN:—domestic and foreign?

MICHAEL MOORE: Right. You know, what I really want to say to that, I don’t want to say it. You know. 

AMY GOODMAN: Just don’t curse, because we want to play it on the air.

MICHAEL MOORE: Eh, no, it’s not about cursing. It’s about a profound question, which is, who are we? I mean, really, who are we, as a people, as Americans? You know, we are responsible at this point for so much death and destruction in certain places in this world that will be such a black mark on our soul for so many years to come, and we just want to try and not think about it, forget about it, stay away from it as far as possible. You know, there’s a lot of guilt. There’s a lot of guilt amongst liberals about the wars, because many liberals were for the wars. Most liberals I know were for invading Afghanistan right after 9/11. But when I think back, you know, to the Iraq war, the beginning of that war—and we’ve talked about this before—where, you know, people I know, the people that were funding my film—the Weinstein brothers were, you know, for the war; eventually they were against it. My agent in Hollywood, the infamous Ari Emanuel, was for the war.

AMY GOODMAN: Rahm’s brother.

MICHAEL MOORE: Rahm’s brother. Al Franken said things in support of the war. I mean, I could go down a whole list of people who we don’t really want to kind of remember that too much. But, in fact, that was the truth. And those who spoke out against the war, especially those who were well known, were vilified for that, even though a month before the war there’s literally millions of people in the streets of America, in towns and villages and cities, for the largest antiwar combined demonstration in our nation’s history. And yet, you know, you had liberals on MSNBC, you had Al Franken, you had other people, who—and Nick Kristof in the Times, Raines, the editor, Keller, who had a column then, all making these pro-war statements. And the New York Times itself, with Judith Miller, helping lead us into the war. So I think there’s a lot of liberal guilt about this, and I think that’s one of the reasons it isn’t discussed.

I have one criticism about WikiLeaks. And this is again why we don’t do things as well as the right and the conservatives do. They released that incredible 400,000-plus document revelation on a Friday night. They did the document drop that you do when you don’t want anybody to notice the documents. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I really was like, "What?" Where—when are we going to get a clue? Do we have to have, like, classes in how to do this? It’s not that hard. And I say this, again, with all due respect to WikiLeaks, because I have huge admiration for them, and I’ve—you know, I’ve been both a financial and a moral supporter of them and Bradley Manning and others who are being persecuted as a result of telling the truth, but we have just—really have got to get it together here and quit pussyfooting around, as we say in the Midwest.