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Susan Demas has spotted plenty of blowhards, buffoons and braggarts during 10 years of covering Michigan politics. And she's not shy about calling out Michael Moore as "wrong-headed and deeply irresponsible."
A new commentary at her website and The Huffington Post is triggered by "Moore’s frequent pro-Trump declarations" and his "unsophisticated observations that pass for political analysis on cable TV." She writes:
At first blush, it may seem odd that the lefty filmmaker . . . would be grabbing pro-Trump headlines.
But given Moore’s poor track record of predicting elections and his insatiable need for media attention, this actually makes a lot of sense.
In her fusillade, the 40-year-old publisher and editor of Inside Michigan Politics newsletter zings the 62-year-old documentary maker for "overwrought columns" and "over-the-top antics."
Moore’s biggest point is that Trump will ride the wave of a “Rust Belt Brexit” in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
He never really explains how a British referendum on the European Union is a good predictor of the American presidential election, but he does know TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] is evil. Plus, those states have had GOP governors. . . .
The interesting thing is that both Trump and Moore are selling pessimism to the American public to boost their brands. If you listen to either of them, you wouldn’t know the unemployment rate is 5.1 percent or that we’re living in the most peaceful time in human history.
Demas, who has been on the beat since starting her career as a politics reporter at the Jackson Citizen Patriot in 2006, suggests possible context for what's going on:
Moore still has has diehard liberal followers, but he’s slipped in relevance and his image has taken a beating with a messy divorce. . . So he has to keep upping the ante with over-the-top antics. . . .
One of the surefire ways of nabbing media attention is for liberals to break with Democrats (and conservatives to bash the GOP). And Moore does it with his trademark bombast, unloading cringeworthy zingers made for TV..
The barrage wraps up with this blunt assessment:
Moore’s clown act suddenly isn’t funny anymore. It’s wrong-headed and deeply irresponsible.
