The Ponte Vedra Democratic Club, along with the Blue Wave Coalition of St. Johns County, held a private, advanced screening of Michael Moore’s new movie “Fahrenheit 11/9” on Wednesday, Sept. 19, at Cinemark Tinseltown Theaters in Jacksonville, and implored attendees to get out and vote Nov. 6.
“We have a very real opportunity to elect a Democratic governor,” said Robin Dion, chair of the Blue Wave Coalition. “We cannot sit this one out.”
The Blue Wave Coalition is a collaboration of 10 organizations in St. Johns County focused on electing Democratic candidates.
Laura Atkinson, president of the Ponte Vedra Democratic Club, said she and fellow club members were there to “dispel the myth that there are no Democrats in Ponte Vedra.”
“All of our votes count, and they do make a difference,” she said.
The movie, which was released nationwide Friday, Sept. 21, is a reference to Moore’s 2004 film “Fahrenheit 9/11” and to Nov. 9, 2016, the day after Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States.
Moore, who predicted a Trump victory ahead of the election, explores how it happened and how he believes Trump was able to take advantage of growing disenfranchisement with the political system.
A large chunk of the movie is devoted to the handling of the water crisis in Moore’s hometown of Flint, Michigan, which he said was purposefully directed at lower-income and minority residents. Moore’s anger at the situation is primarily targeted at Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who he aligns with President Trump by suggesting that Snyder’s poisoning of his own people “in plain sight” could have been inspiring to Trump.
Although the movie is certainly critical of Trump and the current GOP, Moore also has harsh criticisms of the Democrats, particularly the establishment, which he accuses of being out of touch and complacent, at best. Moore also lambasted former President Bill Clinton’s policies regarding gay rights and mass incarceration, Clinton’s relationship with Goldman Sachs and then-President Barack Obama’s handling of the Flint water crisis.
Not surprisingly, however, Moore’s harshest attacks are for Trump himself, from his relationship with his oldest daughter Ivanka, to what Moore said is Trump’s history of racial discrimination and misogyny.
“Fahrenheit 11/9” is not all doom and gloom, though. Moore shows optimism for the future, praising more revolutionary movements in the country, highlighted by the candidacy of progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan; the teacher strike in West Virginia; and, primarily, the students-turned-activists in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting in Parkland.
Moore’s message of the dangers of disenfranchisement and the importance of being counted was a sentiment shared by the local Democratic group leaders at the viewing.
“We’re living in a really dangerous and tenuous time,” Dion said prior to the movie. “We’re watching our democracy crumble every day before our eyes.”
For more information of the Ponte Vedra Democratic Club, email Atkinson at lva711@comcast.net. For more information on the Blue Wave Coalition, visit www.bluwavecoalition.org.
