The Trump Administration is all about smoke and mirrors. Distractions. Contradictions. Cons. Blatant lies. Bold statements that fly in the face of logic. Words that contradict actions. The appearance is the thing, not the actual substance. So is it any big surprise that it has cranked out propaganda films just as any authoritarian or fascist regime has done in the past? If it can’t actually show you what it wants to to see, well, then, it will simply produce it for you in technicolor.
And these films do produce a temporary blip of anxiety and outrage amongst those of us who remain rational and prefer historical truth rather than fantasies with political agendas. But it takes no time at all for people to stop talking about these films, because every last one of them has turned out to be a waste of time, money and effort. They have been preaching to the choir, and every single one has failed to further their cause. They’ve been flops that have not done a thing to slow down Trumps steady slide into that dark hole of national disdain where he belongs.
Someday these films will be viewed by future generations as pathetic, or perhaps humorous cult classics, and if they ever bother to sit through them, I’m quite sure most will think they’ve just wasted a good hour and a half of their lives that they’ll never get back. Well, it’s hard to work up any sympathy when we get to live through 8 solid years of this nightmare, but still, feel our pain, people. Feel our pain.
So without further ado, here’s a brief reminder of some of the MAGA propaganda that has been spit out in this horrific era that can easily be classified as the lowest point, to date, in our nation’s history.
The fact that this movie is also titled The Trump Prophecy: A Voice of Hope; A Movement of Prayer in some places pretty much tells you everything about its bias. It’s all about Christian Nationalism, and claims that Trump was elected through prayer because it was God’s will.
IMDB gives it a 1.6, which is one out of 5 stars. You can’t get much worse than that.
As for Rotten Tomatoes, it didn’t even garner a professional review, and it only got a 22% from the public, which is one of the lowest ratings I’ve ever seen.
The subtitle for this travesty of a movie is “Can We Save America a Second Time?” and it’s based on the facile notion that since Lincoln and Trump were both in the Republican Party, they hold similar political views and both have been martyred by the liberals of this country. What many of the people who swallowed this propaganda don’t know is that the Republicans of Lincoln’s era would barely recognize today’s Republicans. Their political ideologies are so far apart as to be repellant to one another. If Lincoln and Trump were to sit down to dinner, one of them would most likely have stormed out before the appetizers were delivered to the table.
You have to believe the first falsehood about their similar politics in order to swallow all the rest of the lies, such as the idea that fascism is a liberal movement, and that Democrats are similar to the Nazi party. That’s doubly outrageous because Trump Republicans have a white supremacist streak running through them that’s a mile wide. A huge indicator of that is the fact that this movie’s title is a nod of admiration to the film The Birth of a Nation, (supposedly the first time America was saved), which is basically a glorification of the Ku Klux Klan.
IMDB gives it a 4.1, or 2 out of 5 stars.
It was the consensus of Rotten Tomatoes critics that this film gets a zero percent. You must really have to make an effort to be that bad. The general public, though, gave it an 87 percent, which is quite a difference. Of course, the target audience was already gullible to the lies, so they thought it was just great to spend a couple hours in their own echo chamber. The filmmaker, Danesh D’Souza, was pardoned by Trump for violating federal campaign finance laws in 2014, so it’s not unreasonable to think that he’d produce a biased film. People who did not vote for the man stayed away entirely, and therefore didn’t rate it.
Really??
The timing of this film, that was supposedly an exposé of the crimes of then sitting President Joe Biden’s son, is, of course, intentional. It came out as quickly as possible into his presidency, right about the time when the Cheeto was settling into his rage over his false assumption, based on no evidence whatsoever, that he had actually won the election, not Biden.
The title implies that the film was written by, or at least authorized by, Joe Biden. Of course, that could not be further from the truth. And if this weren’t enough of an insult to him, the movie is full of manufactured details based on zero evidence.
And this film was distributed by Breitbart News, that disgusting rag that, according to Wikipedia, “has been described as misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by various academics and journalists. The site has published a number of conspiracy theories and intentionally misleading stories, as well as having promoted climate change denial and COVID-19 misinformation.” Its creator is Andrew Breitbart, a good buddy of Donald Trump.
IMDB gives it a 4.4, or 2 out of 5 stars.
On the other hand, Rotten Tomatoes’ professional reviewers give it a 67%, and the general movie-going population gave it an 87%. Not too shabby.
But then, as I’ve long suspected, the scores on Rotten Tomatoes can often make or break a film, and a lot of weird scores have occurred of late. Which begs the question, as this article does, Should You Trust Rotten Tomatoes Anymore? Inside the Review Manipulation Scandal.
The last movie I’ll discuss today is the one that most of us knew was doomed to fail. A documentary about our current First Lady was never going to fly, because she is so self-absorbed, in my opinion, that she could never reveal herself to others in that manner, and in fact she does not. Not really. It doesn’t do much to warm you to the First Lady. What it does is make you wish you could get those two hours back.
IMDB gives this weird endeavor a 1.6, which is 1 star.
And to shine more evidence onto Rotten Tomatoes’ biased scoring, professional reviewers give it 9%, where as movie-goers give it 99%. According to this Newsweek article, “Debunk.org, a disinformation watchdog, told Newsweek it saw “something suspicious” in the user reviews posted about the film. “The Debunk, org team has reviewed over 220 comments on the Rotten Tomatoes website. Less than five reviews were negative compared to all other reviews of five stars. 97 percent were positive, which is statistically impossible to achieve,” the watchdog said.
“All reviews are presented as verified (tickets purchased over Fandango), but all accounts seem to have only a single review, which is odd, because citizens who love movies tend to be heavier review writers as well. Most reviews appeared two days ago (63 percent) which also looks inauthentic.”
So, there you have it, Dear Reader. These movies were meant to prop up the Orange Man with the Tiny Hands, but maybe, just maybe, people are able to spot bs a little more easily than the Trump administration understands. And if that’s the case, we will continue to see this propaganda dreck as a vainglorious element of a historically horrendous era that will take decades to recover from.
I’ll leave you, Dear Reader, as I gaze upon Trump’s approval rating with a sad smile and a strong desire to make it through to 2029 in one piece.
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