Yes, it was humiliating for the U.S. to be eliminated by perhaps the most boring country on Earth, Belgium. If America has to lose, I want us to be ripped to shreds by Wales or Vietnam or Greenland.

But here’s the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about while I watched our team walk off that field in defeat.

Sure, the rest of the world has been playing this game for a century or two! Of course they’re better than us! But there’s another competition that never gets a broadcast slot. It has no halftime show, no hydration break, no fake flopping where they pretend to be injured! In this other competition we’re often # 1 in the world — or we’re the best at being the worst. Either way, we’re the team that sets the bar!

This other game is called “The World Cup of Democracy” where only true Democracies can play. A special dispensation had to be granted to the U.S. for us to be included. In order to be declared a real “Democracy” your nation’s leader has to be elected by its citizens, not an “Electoral College.” Also, voting districts must not be gerrymandered. A “Democracy” cannot occupy other people’s land, nor can it be a theocracy.

The World Cup of Democracy allows these countries to compete against each other to discover which are the the best nations on Earth — the measure of which is determined by how well each one takes care of its own people and how well it treats the rest of the planet. Do mothers control their own reproductive health? Do their kids get enough healthy food to eat? Are their kids given a chance to go to college or learn a trade even if they lack the funds? Or, are they forced to live in a virtual debtor’s prison for simply wanting that education or training? How fair and equitable is your nation? How much do the wealthy call all the shots?

Let’s see how we each stack up in this new World Cup competition where, when it comes to freedom, human rights, equality, and making sure everyone has a seat at the table and a slice of the pie, that nation ranks among the best.

And to keep this fair, we are comparing only Democracies where people vote, the press prints what it believes to be truth and the government still manages to function, delivering all of life’s necessities.

Round 1: Home Ownership

Ah! The American Dream! The house, the yard, the dog. About 65% of us in the U.S. own our homes. And that puts us at No. 12 among the Democracies playing in this World Cup.

But that’s way behind Croatia, where roughly 91% of the people own their own homes. When Croatia declared independence after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the government didn’t hand millions of state-owned apartments over to Wall Street or big real estate investors. Instead, it let the people already living in those homes buy them at steep discounts. The result? One of the highest homeownership rates in the world.

Norway isn’t far behind, with about 80% homeownership. For decades the country’s oil wealth has pumped millions into programs that actually help their citizens buy their own homes and make it actually possible for young first-time buyers to achieve their goal for practically nothing!

Maybe the American Dream isn’t disappearing. It’s just become easier to find it somewhere else.

(Sources: OECD country report, OECD Croatia report, U.S. Census Bureau Home Ownership Stats)

Round 2: Poverty? What poverty? In the richest country on Earth???

The relative poverty rate in the United States is around 18% — the highest among the democracies competing in the 2026 World Cup.

More than one in six Americans live in relative poverty.

That’s roughly more than twice the poverty rate in Belgium, Norway, France and the Netherlands.

Maybe winning the race to create the most billionaires isn’t worth it if what you’re really doing is trying to win the competition of how many of your neighbors you can leave behind.

Clearly, if the U.S. can make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, there’s enough money to go around to ensure no American has to endure living in poverty.

(Sources: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Confronting Poverty “Facts and Myths About America’s Poor,” Forbes)

Round 3: Universal Health Care

What makes the poverty rate worse for us? ALL of the other Democracies playing in the World Cup have universal or near universal health-care coverage.

But wait, what about the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? Even with the ACA, roughly 26 million Americans remain uninsured. Without it, the uninsured population could potentially swell to nearly 60 million people!

Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared health care to be a human right in 1944. Eighty years later, the country that split the atom and put 12 humans on the moon still can’t manage what Uruguay figured out with three million people and a whole lot of cows.

(Sources: Congressional Budget Office, OECD, World Health Organization, U.S. Census Bureau, Health & Human Services, Social Security Administration, Physicians for a National Health Program, Public Broadcasting Service)

Round 4: College tuition

Average public university tuition in the U.S. runs around $11,000 a year. That’s before room, board, books, and the debt that follows you like a bad “Twilight” tattoo. In Norway, Germany and Austria, public college is essentially free. Free.

Let’s give college credit where it’s due. In France, undergraduate tuition is $200 a year or less. In Sweden, Scotland, Croatia, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, post secondary education is essentially free once you pay administrative fees.

How did that happen? These countries looked at higher education and said, “What if we just let our young people have it?” Radical concept, right? Never could happen in the U.S.? (Wait for an upcoming Substack. We’ve already done it, starting in Kalamazoo and in more than 300 cities and states across America.)

(Sources: OECD, U.S. Department of Education/National Center for Education Statistics, College Board: Trends in College Pricing 2025)

Round 5: Mass incarceration? We’re No. 1 at 1.83 million

It’s not just the number, but the rate at which we put people away.

We lock up around 540 of every 100,000 people, the highest rate among the democracies that played in this World Cup. That’s five times Canada’s rate, eight times Germany’s and nearly 10 times Norway’s. We call ourselves the land of the free but apparently, some restrictions apply.

The clear winner in this round? Japan: about 33 out of 100,000 people. We imprison our own people at roughly 16 times the rate of this fellow democracy. Japan has more than one-third of America’s population squeezed into a country smaller than California, yet somehow they don’t need to lock up their neighbors at anything remotely close to the rate we do.

We have only about 4% of the world’s population, but around 20% of the world’s incarcerated people. Anyone else want to join me in a chant of USA! USA! USA!

(Sources: World Prison Brief, Bureau of Justice Statistics, OpenCrime.us)

Now for serious numbers that are not a game

Round 6: Infant and Maternal Mortality in Wealthier Democracies

I want to slow down for the next two, because they’re not statistics to me, and they shouldn’t be to you, either. These are real people. In the 1950s, a dear friend’s mother had a job in Lansing typing up the state’s maternal and infant mortality reports. Number after number, hospital after hospital. She never forgot that each one was a family’s worst day.

Infant mortality

This sad statistic measures how many babies, out of every 1,000 born alive, die before their first birthday.

In the United States, that number is around 6.
In both Norway and Japan, it’s less than 2.

Sit with that.

A baby born in this country is roughly three times more likely to die before her first birthday than one born in Oslo or Kyoto.

Unless you’re African American, then it’s double the already dismal national rate, at 11 out of 1,000.

Same species, same century, but wildly different odds, decided by nothing other than where the stork landed.

Maternal mortality

This is how many mothers out of every 100,000 end up dying from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth, whether it’s while she’s carrying the baby, in the delivery room or up to six weeks after delivery.

In America, that number is 18.
In Norway, it’s 1.5.

Read that again.

This means an American woman is roughly 10 times more likely to die bringing a child into this world than a Norwegian woman. In the richest country in the history of countries.

Then you pull out the rate for African American women in the U.S., and it’s so much worse: 44 to 50, depending on the year and whose numbers you use.

One of the truest measures of a country’s success isn’t in the strength of its stock market or the might of its military, or even whether its team wins the World Cup. It’s whether mothers and children live. In other words: how well does a nation take care of the people who are the most vulnerable?

This is not a talent gap. This is not “the rest of the world has been playing longer.” This is a choice we keep making, election after election, budget after budget.

(Sources for maternal and infant mortality: World Health Organization/UNICEF, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, OECD, NCBI)

So here’s where I land, friends.

I wasn’t sad on July 6th because we lost a game in the FIFA World Cup. C’mon, we lost to Belgium, a country with world-class players and, I’ll note, universal healthcare. No disgrace. Our players fought. Tillman’s free kick was a thing of beauty. We’ll be back in 2030.

I was sad because I know what we as Americans are capable of doing for one another. This is the country that built the interstate highways and invented the weekend. When we decide something matters, we know the good we can do.

Every one of the above countries is a democracy, just like us. Which means every one of the results I cited came from ordinary people recognizing what they need and want, demanding it and then voting out the people who wouldn’t give it to them to bring in the people who would.

That’s the good news buried in this dismal scoreboard: in a democracy, the fans get to pick the team.

I watched the final games last weekend. I know the half-time show was controversial but seeing Madonna, the Muppets and a rainbow of children from a local public school sing about love made me think our country becoming competitive in these stats can and should be more than a dream. Let’s start training for the games that decide whether babies live, whether kids graduate free of debt, and a future in which getting sick doesn’t cost you everything.

Isn’t it time to change that?

Yours in defeat (temporarily),

Michael

P.S. I put my film, “Sicko,” about the unequal health care system in America on YouTube. Watch it here for free.

Images: Graphics based on provided sources, aerial home image by Ameer Basheer, mother and child image by Raul Angel

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell listening to J.D. Vance mansplain how to properly pronounce “Appalachia” while also droning on about his antics at Yale Law School rather than send me $5 — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry, anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and toxic levels of willful disinformation found elsewhere.

Today I’m announcing that I am strongly endorsing our beloved Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for the U.S. Senate from our great state of Michigan.

In addition to currently being ahead in nearly every poll in Michigan, and of having the support of millions of Michiganders like myself plus thousands of progressives across America — including Bernie Sanders and AOC — and numerous members of Congress (Maxwell Frost, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, former Congressman Andy Levin, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, etc.), Abdul has been endorsed by our great unions (the UAW, National Nurses Union, AFT Teachers Union, IATSE Local 26, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 951, etc.) and, of course, our allies in stopping the Gaza genocide, the Jewish Voice for Peace.

Abdul isn’t a career politician. He’s an actual medical doctor and health leader. He has spent his life trying to heal people before he ever asked for their vote. The son of Egyptian immigrants, he grew up in southeastern Michigan, where he attended public schools and was the captain of his football and wrestling teams. He’s a University of Michigan alum who went on to earn a medical degree at Columbia University and a second doctorate at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

What Abdul came to understand is something most politicians never do: a lot of what makes people sick has nothing to do with what happens in a doctor’s office.

The illness starts long before anyone ends up in an emergency room.

It starts when corporations poison a neighborhood and call it business. It starts when politicians slash services and call it fiscal responsibility. It starts when families are buried under medical debt while insurance companies and drug manufacturers post record profits.

Instead of accepting that, Abdul decided to do something about it.

When Detroit emerged from bankruptcy, he helped rebuild the city’s Health Department from the ground up. In Wayne County, he transformed the Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services, helping serve nearly two million Michiganders.

And unlike a lot of politicians, he didn’t measure success by how many press conferences he held. He measured it by whether people’s lives actually got better.

Kids who couldn’t afford eyeglasses got them. Lead was removed from Detroit’s elementary schools. Narcan was put into the hands of people who needed it, helping save lives during the opioid crisis. Polluters who had treated Michigan communities like dumping grounds were finally challenged. And hundreds of thousands of Michiganders trapped under crushing medical debt were given a chance to breathe again through a program that will erase up to $700 million of what they owed.

That’s what public service is supposed to look like.

Not serving the powerful. Serving the public.

He believes healthcare is a human right. He believes working people deserve the dignity of a living wage. He believes corporations shouldn’t be able to buy our Democracy. And most importantly, he has shown the courage to say these things when powerful people would rather he stay quiet.

At a time when too many politicians are asking what is politically safe — or as in the case of Abdul’s opponent who is taking a whopping $40 million from AIPAC and other outside sources! — Abdul is asking what is morally right.

That’s the kind of leadership we need.

This election is about whether ordinary people still have a voice in a system increasingly dominated by wealth and power. It’s about whether Democracy belongs to the people who work for a living — or the people who can afford to buy massive influence.

Michigan deserves a Senator who will fight for us — not the corporations, not the lobbyists, not the billionaire class, not those who support the genocide and the mass starvation of innocent children.

If there’s one thing to keep in mind when the political establishment starts crying about “electability” and about who has the best chance to win in November it is this:

Certain people who run the Democratic party do not want to win because it is a MORAL IMPERATIVE THAT WE WIN or that we MUST elect the candidate who BEST represents the needs and desires of the people of our State. They sadly are beholden to other interests. And they only want to win on their terms — not on yours and not on mine.

This has to end. No more handing victories over to the MAGA Party! How do each of us feel every single time we have to hear that “Trump won Michigan in 2024”? Sick! Enough! We need fresh new leadership to take us into this new progressive era that is sweeping the country!

We have a brilliant candidate in this election who will challenge the corporate and political elites that are burrowed into both parties. For the life of me, how are there so-called “moderate” politicians in the Democratic establishment that take positions like voting for war — meaning they’d would rather LOSE the election to a Republican than see a truly independent, unbought, and unbossed Democrat like Abdul win? My friends, this has to stop.

If a leader like Abdul wants to get our health care out of the hands of private, for-profit, parasitic corporations, and wants to end our barbaric and cruel wars, he is a threat not just to the health insurance industry and the war industry – he is a threat to both Republican AND Democratic elites.

Do not believe the hacks and pundits who try to scare you about “electability” – THEY are the ones who don’t mind losing to Republicans. They only want obedient, corporate-friendly Democrats to win. THEY are the reason Trump won *twice*. And because they’ve sold us out for so many years THEY are the reason that Michiganders have had it — and have now put Abdul El-Sayed at #1 in most polls!

Abdul’s opponent in next month’s primary is pro-war and pro-Wall Street — and because she has made this tragic mistake in misreading the true feelings of the citizens of this Michigan, THIS is why Abdul is ahead. The corporate Dems had 49 years to codify Roe v Wade into law — and DIDN’T! I remember in 2000 attending a meeting of delegates to the Democratic Convention and being ordered by the party hacks: “Don’t talk about abortion — we’ll lose! Don’t talk about guns — WE’LL LOSE! DON’T TALK ABOUT GAYS — OMG, WE’LL DEFINITELY LOSE!!!” And so what happened? We lost and lost and lost. Only when younger voters started to organize did things begin to turn around.

Here’s the truth:

A Democrat like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is Trump’s and MAGA’s worst nightmare. *We* are the ones who intend to defeat the whole rotten and corrupt system that created Trump and has allowed him to make it even more corrupt, more cruel, and more barbaric.

And that’s why we will win. This is our Zohran Mamdani moment here in the Midwest! This is the time for us and for millions of young voters to shut down the Chuck Schumers and the loser professional politicians who were unable to stop Donald Trump! We will win this Senate Primary on August 4th! We will defeat Big Pharma, AIPAC and Donald Trump’s puppet Mike Rogers in November.

And we will win the battle to make this world a better place for all of us.

— Michael Moore

======================================

Watch this recent interview with Abdul by Katy Tur:

Read or watch this interview with Abdul by Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs:

“The Only Candidate Chuck Schumer Fears”

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/abdul-el-sayed

If you think healthcare should be a human right, and not a profit-making boondoggle, read Abdul’s plan for how we finally win Medicare for All:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/medicare-for-all-a-citizen-s-guide-abdul-el-sayed/2514c34aa5717f79

And check this out:

https://abdulforsenate.com/medicare-for-all/

If you want to volunteer or find a way to help the campaign, go here:

https://go.abdulforsenate.com/

I will be spending every free minute I have in the next few weeks to send a real fighter for the State of Michigan and for working people everywhere to the U.S. Senate this year. There will be a tsunami of voters across America electing progressives to all sorts of offices. Be part of this! Now is the time to shut the Madness down. Let’s do this together!

Michael Moore

Proud Michigander

Oscar Winner

Eagle Scout

Michigan’s youngest-ever elected official in 1972

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry, anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

Friends,

On this July 4th weekend, I just wanted to give you a heads up that one of my favorite pieces of theater in recent years that is available on PBS.

It’s the musical about the brave women fighting for and winning the right to vote. It’s called SUFFS (short for “Suffragettes”). It debuted on Broadway two years ago and won two Tony Awards. I saw it and it was incredible. Now you can stream it right on PBS. Don’t miss it! I was so moved. The music was great. And to watch this during this moment we are living through — INSPIRING. Just what the gender that makes 82 cents on the male dollar called for!

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My grandmother, Lois Elizabeth Wall, was a suffragette who helped organize the women in my hometown to get the 19th Amendment passed. This was the family my sisters and I were raised by. How lucky we were!

Again, please watch Suffs. It’s a brilliant, entertaining way to spend a couple hours. On this historic anniversary of our country, it’s important to remember that things get better when people get involved and demand that they get better.

We have to keep up the fight against this new war in Iran, against the American-funded genocide of the Palestinian people, and everything else this fascist government is up to. We have no other choice.

Yours,
Michael Moore

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry, anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

’Note: This was originally posted on May 8th, 2026, as a heads up to the original airing on PBS. It has been updated.

America, a country 250 years old, and the only nation sick and violent enough to have ever used a nuclear weapon, in partnership with Israel, a nation younger than Mick Jagger and Bugs Bunny, and the only nuclear armed nation in its region, are on the verge of wiping one of the oldest civilizations off the map.

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Iran is the cradle of one of the greatest civilizations this planet has ever seen. While our ancestors in Europe were still figuring out how to build a hut, the Persians had already written the world’s first declaration of human rights, built a multicultural empire that treated conquered peoples with dignity, and were doing math and medicine that we wouldn’t catch up to for a thousand years. These are the people who gave us algebra, medicine, and the theme song to Game of Thrones. Despite harsh government crackdowns and censorship today, Iran still produces some of the world’s greatest filmmakers.

America has been meddling with and attacking Iran since 1953, when we overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime? He wanted to nationalize their oil industry so it would benefit the people of Iran. Kinda like when Trump got the federal government to own ten percent of Intel by spending $9 billion of our tax dollars on it. We supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in their brutal decade-long war with Iran in the 1980s, providing him with chemical weapons and other material support. And, yet, our leaders and our media are stupid enough to keep asking questions like “why do they hate us?” Hate us?! They don’t hate US! WE HATE THEM!

We’re the bad guys! If you didn’t realize that under previous presidents at least Donald Trump has ripped off the mask and shown you who we really are!

Weeks after an illegal, immoral, unjustified attack by America and Israel, America’s terrorist Commander-in-Chief – not satisfied with just killing hundreds of schoolgirls at an elementary school, bombing universities, medical centers, and civilian infrastructure – now wants to go for it all.

The so-called 'opposition party' in the U.S. – the party that initiated and continues to enable the genocide in Gaza and whose Senate 'Leader' Chuck Schumer taunted Trump last year to be more aggressive with Iran – stands by now and watches this horror. Not simply because they are cowards, but because Democratic leadership actually supports this war.

NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US. WE MUST DO IT OURSELVES.

THIS MADNESS MUST STOP!

AMERICA’S MILITARY LEADERS MUST DISOBEY ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL ORDERS!

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US SHOULD BE IN THE STREETS RIGHT NOW DEMANDING THAT THIS MADNESS STOP.

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US MUST CALL OUR REPS. DEMANDING IMPEACHMENT OF PETE HEGSETH AND CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS!

25TH AMENDMENT NOW!

WE ARE ALL COMPLICIT!

ENOUGH!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

-Michael

A Scene from Fahrenheit 11/9 that Trump’s genocidal threat reminded me of today:

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

ICE shot a mom of 3 in the face just after she dropped her 6-year old off at school. Renee Nicole Good was a prize-winning poet from a red state. She was the widow of a veteran. She was also raising her kids to be kind and compassionate. She did missionary work and sang in the church choir.

Trump and his thugs went on TV and called her a “domestic terrorist.” I know of only one primary Domestic Terrorist, and he and his fellow terrorists are about to be removed from Congress later this year. Can we last til then?

There are over a thousand protests, vigils, and other actions to demand an end to ICE on Saturday & Sunday, all over the country. Find the one closest to you here.

They shot a mom of 3 in the face.

Let me say that again, because if that sentence doesn’t stop you cold, something is wrong: They shot a mom of 3 in the face — just after she dropped her 6-year old off at school.

Don’t let this weekend pass by without shouting about it.

Our silence will be deafening.

And history shows — silence is what lets them get away with it.

We cannot wait until November to stop this violence. No one is coming to save us but ourselves.

See you in the streets!

Find a protest near you here!

** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

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89 years ago today, General Motors workers in Flint, Michigan, (including my uncle) took over 3 factories, locked the doors, shut down the assembly lines and refused to come out until GM recognize their union — and give them a 5¢ an hour pay raise. 44 days later, GM caved, the strikers walked victoriously out of the factories, the UAW was born — and from that day on and in the years afterward, the working class would own their own home, drive their own car, attain free health and dental care, take 4 weeks paid vacation each year, get a free union lawyer if they needed one, and send the kids off to college and a better life. According to many historians, what we call the “middle class” was born on this night. Until this moment there existed only the rich… and all the rest of you serfs.

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And on a happier note: 40 years ago this week, I survived a terrorist attack at the Vienna airport where I was changing planes. At exactly the same minute, another group with guns and grenades attacked inside the Rome airport. Between the two airports, 19 people were killed and 138 were wounded.

Ireland, 1845-52
Flint, 1936-37
Vienna, Dec 27, 1985.
Palestine, 1947-today

Tonight’s Question: What Would You Do if the British were starving you, your employer made you work in abhorrent conditions and did not pay you enough to afford the rent, and the Israelis were ethnic cleansing you with American dollars and bombs?

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

There is one song that stands out as a plea for peace, as relevant this year as it was during the height of the Vietnam War: Happy Xmas (War Is Over) by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Its release in 1971 was accompanied by a two-year long international campaign for peace in 11 cities, bearing a simple but powerful message:

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Sean Ono Lennon won an Oscar last year for Best Animated Short Film. A few days ago he asked me if I’d like to share it with all of you and of course I said yes. The anti-war short is about two soldiers playing chess on opposite sides of a battle, and the pigeon who carries their messages across the battlefield.

Check it out below on YouTube. It’s a very moving film, and beautifully animated. It’s only 11 minutes. Share it with friends and family over this holiday season.

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Sean is also using the film to raise money to help kids in conflict zones this holiday season. This has been one of the deadliest times to be a child in this century. Please join me in donating here to War Child to get these kids (in places like Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan) life-saving medical and mental health aid.

It’s now been 3 Christmas seasons since Israel started its campaign of genocide. Over 70,000 Palestinians killed, including at least 20,000 children. That’s literally one child killed every hour. The murder is paid for with our tax dollars.

This Christmas week let’s keep up the pressure to end this genocide waged first by Biden and now Trump and the U.S. Congress. Call your reps at 202-224-3121 and tell them to support the Block The Bombs Act. And remember John & Yoko’s message, and the message of this film: Wars don’t end themselves. Only people can end them. That means you and me.

I’ve included the poster below that we created in November of last year of the war crimes committed by our own elected officials. They include 100% of elected Republican Senators, and far, far too many disgustingly pro-genocide Democrats. (Eight months later, public outrage forced three of them to switch their votes for a new resolution blocking arms to Israel: Tammy Baldwin, Tammy Duckworth, and Patty Murray.) The poster also includes the brave Dems who have voted to end this “aid” to Netanyahu and his apartheid state.

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg Trials. This was the international military tribunal where prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany who carried out or otherwise participated in the Nazi Holocaust and other war crimes were put on trial.

In 2018, I spent an afternoon with Ben Ferencz who, at the age of 99, was the last living prosecutor of the Nazis. Without Ben, these Nazi war criminals may never have been brought to justice. Without the Nuremberg Trials, we would not have the modern system of international criminal law. It helped establish new legal principles and led directly to the creation of the Genocide Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court.

My 2018 interview with Ben from “Fahrenheit 11/9.”

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Basically, the Nuremberg idea was: No one is above the law — not even states. Not even powerful leaders.

Today, 80 years later, whatever system of human rights and international law we were pretending to uphold has collapsed. The mask is off.

In August, Vladimir Putin, a man who has had an ICC arrest warrant out for him since 2023, was welcomed to Anchorage, Alaska by President Donald Trump.

In January of 2024, The International Court of Justice said that Israel was plausibly committing a genocide in Gaza. Since then, most human rights organizations (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc) have declared that Israel *is* committing genocide. In November of 2024, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. Yet every few months, Netanyahu is welcomed in Washington and New York, by Democrats and Republicans, getting standing ovations while addressing both houses of Congress, and still getting unlimited military and diplomatic support from the U.S.

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And to add insult to genocide — yesterday, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg Trials, the Washington Post reported this:

The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika — an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and the deaths of more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting in World War II — as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month. Instead, the Coast Guard will [simply] classify the Nazi-era insignia as “potentially divisive” under its new guidelines.

Potentially divisive??!!

Today, the Coast Guard has said they’re reversing that decision — but how was that ever decided in the first place?! How did we get here? And how do we get out?

Ben Ferencz died on April 7, 2023 at the age of 103. When we spoke in 2018, he lamented the dark turn America and the world was taking during Trump’s first term. While he is no longer here to witness (or prosecute) the current crop of thugs and war criminals, his legacy continues. And our work continues.

Onward!

Michael Moore
Anti-Nazi since 1954

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

Good morning fellow Americans in California, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Maine, Ohio, Michigan and others!

There are many elections taking place today across the country. New Jersey and Virginia will elect a new governor. Pennsylvania will vote on whether or not its Supreme Court will retain its Democratic majority. The 18th Congressional District in Texas will elect a new member of Congress to fill the seat of deceased Democrat Rep. Sylvester Turner (one of three House Democrats to die in office this year). There are Mayoral elections today in New York, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Jersey City, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Traverse City, Michigan, among many others. Numerous progressive candidates are running in most of these races.

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There are also statewide ballot measures — from one in Colorado to raise taxes on high income earners, to Maine which is hoping to pass a gun control law, to California which is trying to fight what Texas has done in redrawing their electoral map to create 5 new pro-Trump Congressional districts. California’s Prop 50 will negate that by creating five redrawn districts to take away five MAGA-loving Congressmen. (Yes, we need to end this gerrymandered system. We’ve done it in Michigan. You can do it, too.)

To learn more about what’s on the ballot in your state today, go to www.vote411.org/select-state.

Many of these elections today are critical. Please show up and make your voice heard. Now is not the time to give up.

There are more of us than there are of them (see chart below). The party of white supremacy and authoritarianism is praying that we’ll just stay home today. DON’T!! We need you. Let’s stop this madness.

Onward!

Michael Moore

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

This is it. We need ALL hands on deck for Zohran Mamdani! Actually, not just for Zohran — but for all of us.

In the next 48-60 hours we have the chance to change history. To elect the most progressive mayor ever in New York City. But this isn’t just about NYC— Zohran’s election could be a huge turning point for the entire country. We need a LANDSLIDE that will inspire millions.

So I am asking YOU to sign up now to knock on doors for Zohran tomorrow, Sunday 11/2. Go to zohranfornyc.com/GOTV, select “Find A Canvass” and pick the neighborhood most convenient for you.

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There are dozens of canvasses across all five boroughs, starting at 9 am. The last canvass goes out at 6 pm, so if you live 3, 4, even 6 hours away — stop reading this and make a plan now. Each and every one of you — whether across the river in New Jersey or up north in Connecticut, from DC to Boston, west of the city all the way to the middle of Pennsylvania — you can leave between 7am and noon and get here. Call a friend or a family member and ask them to join you, if possible.

(If you’ve never knocked on doors for a candidate before, don’t worry— you’ll be quickly trained as soon as you get here and paired with an experienced volunteer.)

I know, I know, you’re thinking, “Wow, isn’t this ask a little too late? The polls are looking good. Zohran’s got this in the bag!”

But in these past few weeks, billionaires have spent tens of millions of dollars against Mamdani in a massive concerted effort by Wall Street hedgefunders, big banks, and real estate developers to prevent what they’re afraid of happening: a democratic socialist — someone who wants to fight the great harm that our economic system causes — may become the Mayor of largest city in the United States. The capital of capitalism, the seat of our major media, and the headquarters of more corporations than any other city in the country.

They’re right to be afraid — the polls say they should be. But as we’ve learned time and time again, polls can be wrong. We’ve all been here before — everything seems to be going our way, until suddenly… it isn’t.

We cannot let that happen again on our watch.

If you’ve ever bemoaned the fact that Bernie was sabotaged and stymied every step of the way, if you’ve ever complained that the system is rigged in favor of the rich and powerful, if in the last year you’ve wondered aloud about what is it that we can do to save our Democracy — If you’ve ever bemoaned the fact that Bernie was sabotaged and stymied every step of the way, if you’ve ever complained that the system is rigged in favor of the rich and powerful, if in the last year you’ve wondered aloud about what is it that we can do to save our Democracy — THIS is the chance to actually, physically, DO something about it.

My personal ask of you is this: if you can drop what you’re doing tomorrow (Sunday) — please do. Go to zohranfornyc.com/GOTV and sign up for a Sunday NYC door-to-door shift right now.

It’s not hyperbole to say that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a difference — a difference that will resonate for thousands of miles up and down and all across this country, inspiring millions and reminding young people that action can matter. And that this youth movement for Zohran can show the older generations that it is categorically, undeniably, a new day in America.

YOU and your friends can be a part of this historic victory just by showing up tomorrow, Sunday. I’m already here in NYC. Please get up in the morning tomorrow and join me and thousands upon thousands of others. If you can leave in the morning and be here between noon and 6 pm, there are numerous places that need your help to knock on 200,000 doors. You can do this all in one day — even if you’re only here for 3-6 hours, and return to be home later Sunday night.

I wouldn’t ask this of you if I wasn’t convinced of the serious possibility of a massive success come this Tuesday, one that will reverberate and help take this country back.

If we succeed it will be a mind-blowing moment in the history of this country.

And you will have been part of it.

Come join me, Zohran, and thousands of others in NYC tomorrow (Sunday) and together we’ll do what’s never been done. We will send a deafening warning to those who think they own this country. It will be heard not just in New York, but around the world. And the possibilities of what may come after this are numerous, necessary and, yes, just possibly, breathtaking.

My sincerest gratitude in advance,

Michael Moore,
Block Captain #1278,
Zohran for Mayor

Friends,

The people of New York City – my home away from home – are on the verge of doing something historic.

On November 4th, 2025 – one week from today – we will elect Zohran Kwame Mamdani as Mayor of the largest city in America. It will be nothing short of miraculous.

(New Yorkers – No need to wait until November 4th! Early voting has already started: nycvotes.org/how-to-vote/early-voting)

This was not supposed to happen.

Mamdani is a proud member and organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America and has run a campaign focused on affordability – freezing rent for more than 1 million New Yorkers, building affordable housing, standing up to bad landlords, making buses fast and free, helping bring down the price of groceries with some city-owned grocery stores, and free universal childcare. The types of things that any sane, humane, and civilized city (and country) should have. And the types of things that the richest city in the richest country in the world should be embarrassed to not provide. He’d accomplish these things by raising the corporate tax rate and taxing the rich.

But that’s not all. Mamdani has taken the shocking and politically incorrect position that Palestinians are, in fact, human beings and should not be exterminated. Especially not with the bombs and the diplomatic cover being provided by the United States of America and its taxpayers. Perhaps the money that’s been used to make Gaza – which is the size of Detroit – home to the largest number of child amputees in the world thanks to Israel’s indiscriminate onslaught, could better be spent elsewhere, like on housing or health care.

For these reasons, the political power structure in New York and around the country has been trying to stop him. They rallied around disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, yet Mamdani crushed him by double digits. And with the election a week away, they are desperately throwing everything they have to not just shut down Mamdani, but the movements upon which the Mamdani campaign is built upon.

The good news is — it’s not working! He’s ahead in the polls. He’s built a volunteer army of 90,000 (!!) people volunteering their time and energy to take on the oligarchs, and the political and media class that they own.

The bad news is this: in the final weeks, a new threat has emerged. The desperate Cuomo campaign and the desperate media think they have an ace up their sleeve to derail Mamdani: The fact that he’s a… MUSLIM!!!

From open violent threats directed at Zohran and his family, to hateful and bigoted TV ads, to racist and disgusting attacks from the media and his opponents, the level of hate is sickening.

Through it all, Mamdani has handled himself with courage, dignity, and class. Last week, after Friday prayer at the Islamic Cultural Center in the Bronx, Mamdani delivered an emotional speech I’d like you all to watch and share with others. Please take a few minutes to watch below (and if you’d like to read it, see the transcript below the video).

And to the nearly one million Muslims in New York City who are currently being barraged with Islamophobic TV ads and mailers – I have your back. We all have your back!

And to the bigots and Islamophobes and haters and warmongers – ENOUGH! IT’S OVER!

Yours,

Michael Moore

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Watch this video from Zohran for NYC shot by Donald Borenstein, a friend and colleague who since 2020 has worked on and off on my podcast, and is one of the many unsung heroes of the Mamdani movement here in NYC:

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Here is the text of of Zohran Mamdani’s Speech on Islamophobia at the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx, October 24th, 2025:

Six years ago, shortly after I had announced I was running for State Assembly, a well-meaning Muslim uncle pulled me aside. He smiled softly, and looked at me with care.

In a quiet voice, he told me I did not have to tell people I was Muslim. His eyes kind, his beard proud, and his face heavy with the implications of the unsaid: I had not learned the lesson that he had been taught time and again.

It is the lesson that safety could only be found in the shadows of our city. That it is in those shadows alone where Muslims could embrace their full identities, and that if we were to emerge from those shadows, then it is in those shadows that we must leave our faith.

These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught, again and again.

And over these last few days, these lessons have become the closing messages of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa, and Eric Adams.

Yesterday, Andrew Cuomo laughed and agreed when a radio host said that I would cheer another 9/11.

Yesterday, Eric Adams said that we “can’t let our city become Europe.” He compared me to violent extremists, and he lied again and again when he said that our movement seeks to burn churches and destroy communities.

The day before that, Curtis Sliwa slandered me from a debate stage when he claimed that I support global jihad.

And every day, Super PAC ads imply that I am a terrorist or mock the way I eat, push polls that ask New Yorkers questions like whether they support invented proposals to make halal food mandatory, or political cartoons that represent my candidacy as an airplane hurtling towards the World Trade Center.

But I do not want to use this moment to speak to them any further. I want to use this moment to speak to the Muslims of New York City.

I want to speak to the memory of my aunt, who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab.

I want to speak to the Muslim who works for our city—whether they teach in our schools or walk the beat for the NYPD, New Yorkers who all make daily sacrifices for the city they call home, only to see their leaders spit in their face.

I want to speak to every child who grows up here marked as the Other, who is randomly selected in a way that never quite feels random, who feels that they carry a stain that can never be cleaned.

Growing up in the shadow of 9/11, I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion in this city. I will always remember the disdain that I faced, the way my name could immediately become “Mohammad,” and how I could return to my city only to be asked in a double mirrored room at the airport if I had any plan on attacking it.

And since I was very young, I’ve also known that I was spared the worst of it. I was never pressured to be an informant like a classmate of mine. I have never had the word ‘terrorist’ spray-painted on my garage, as one of my staff had to endure. My mosque has never been set on fire.

To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity. But indignity does not make us distinct—there are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.

Since I announced my candidacy for Mayor one year ago yesterday, I have sought to be the candidate fighting for every single New Yorker, not simply the Muslim candidate. I have carried these indignities with me each moment of this race, doing so all the while as the first major Muslim candidate in the history of our city.

I thought that if I could build a campaign of universality, I could define myself as the leader I aspire to be – one representing every New Yorker, no matter their skin color or religion, no matter where they were born. I thought that if I worked hard enough, it would allow me to be that leader. And I thought that if I behaved well enough – or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks all while returning back to my central message – it would allow me to be more than just my faith.

I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.

In doing this, I have told the wide-eyed young child in Jackson Heights or the first-time voter in Parkchester that they too should remain in the shadows. In many ways I have become that same uncle who pulled me aside six years ago.

No more.

The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker. And yet, for too long, we have been told to ask for less than that, and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive.

No more.

For as long as we have lived, we have known that no matter what anyone says, there are still certain forms of hate that are acceptable in this city.

Islamophobia is not seen as inexcusable. One can incite violence against our mosques and know that condemnation will never come. Elected officials in this city can sell t-shirts calling for my deportation without any fear of accountability. The consequences amidst this inaction are stark—more than one million Muslims in this city, existing all while being made to feel like as if we are guests in our own home.

No more.

We stand on the precipice of an election—but that is not what today is about.

We know that in less than two weeks, we will say goodbye to a disgraced former Governor and our current indicted Mayor. The bigger question is whether we are willing to say goodbye to something much larger than either of these two men. It is whether we are willing to say goodbye to anti-Muslim sentiment that has grown so endemic in our city that when we hear it, we know not whether the words were spoken by a Republican or by a Democrat—we know only that it was spoken in the language of the politics of this city.

In an era of ever diminishing bipartisanship, it seems that Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement.

And while I appreciate all who have rushed to my defense over these past two days, I think of those Muslims in this city who do not have the luxury of being the Democratic nominee, who do not have the luxury of being deemed worthy of solidarity.

While my opponents in this race have brought hatred to the forefront, this is just a glimpse of what so many have to endure everyday across this city. And while it would be easy for us to say that this is not who we are as a city—we know the truth. This is who we have allowed ourselves to become.

And a question lies before each of us. Will we continue to accept a narrow definition of what it means to be a New Yorker, that makes smaller every day the number of those guaranteed a life of dignity?

Will we remain in the shadows, or will we together step into the light?

There are twelve days remaining until Election Day.

I will be a Muslim man in New York City each of those twelve days, and every day that follows after that.

I will not change who I am, how I eat, or the faith that I am proud to call my own.

But there is one thing that I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.

Thank you very much.

If You’re In New York City, Early Voting Has Already Started!

Early Voting is NOW through Nov 2nd
Election Day: Nov 4th

Make a plan to early vote here: nycvotes.org/how-to-vote/early-voting
Check your voter registration here: e-register.vote.nyc
Find your poll site here: findmypollsite.vote.nyc

Help Get Out The Vote for Zohran!
Sign up to canvass here: http://zohranfornyc.com/gotv
Not in NYC? Sign up to phonebank here: volunteer.zohranfornyc.com/phonebanking

** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

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Friends,

Last weekend, you sent me thousands of pictures from your local No Kings protests. Minneapolis to Miami, Pittsburgh to Paris, you showed up to fight fascism and defend democracy.

My associate producer, Charlotte Albrecht, attended the NYC protest in Times Square, where over 350,000 people gathered and marched 33 blocks to Union Square. Teenagers, parents pushing strollers, immigrant workers, union members, activists — whether draped in an American flag or decked out in a keffiyeh, toting a cardboard sign or wielding a glossy print out, waddling around in an inflatable unicorn or sporting a “Zohran for NYC” t-shirt — a mass of people pouring down 7th Avenue, to the tune of tubas and tambourines, a thousand cacophonous chants about every issue under the sun.

But we walked away with the sense that people want more. You want more.

Imagine if the 7 million people who showed up on No Kings Day demanded more. What if we painted a picture of the world we want to live in? Not just “No Kings” or “No Trump.” Not just telling everyone what we’re against, but showing everyone what we are for.

Make no mistake — in the face of a lawless and criminal administration that’s currently building a Gestapo-like police force that can detain, arrest and deport citizens and non-citizens alike, we should not take for granted our ability to get 7 million Americans out into the streets.

But what if we woke up tomorrow and demanded what we really want?

Think about it, friends. More to come.

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Listen below:

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Elon Musk than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

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Friends,

What a powerful incredible day it was yesterday all across the U.S. (and the world)! Early estimates are that over 7 million protesters in all 50 states came out to take a stand against dictatorial rule, fascism and a corrupt administration that continues to break the law and violate numerous human rights and our Constitution.

The turnout was massive, from crowds well into six digits in big cities to the hundreds who showed up in the smallest towns and villages — some places that had NEVER seen any sort of protest, let alone anything with numbers like those.

In one small village near me in northern Michigan (pop. 500) over 1,000 people lined the main road! “There were more people here than Oktoberfest!” said one neighbor. I asked, “Where did the 1,000 come from if the total population is 500?”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” she replied. “I asked a number of them where they were from and it was clear people from all over northern Michigan drove an hour or so to get here! One family even drove down from Canada!”

Note to Canadians: thank you so much for standing with us. But be careful — the border guards have been warned to be on the lookout for Canadian “terrorists and Hamas sympathizers.” I guess ever since you so forcefully rejected our generous offer to become the 51st State, all 40 million of you are now on the Watch List! [If it helps, many of us have been secretly rooting for the Blue Jays this weekend, on the road to what we humbly call the WORLD Series.]

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Here’s my two happy takeaways from the No Kings protests:

1. Many groups showed up with signs and banners advocating for numerous specific causes. Often that hasn’t worked so well as it can lead to a lack of a singular focus. Not so yesterday! Instead, it created a beautiful mosaic of all the things we believe in: Democracy, women’s reproductive rights, loving treatment of our immigrant neighbors, support for the Palestinian people, saving the planet, and ending corporate greed, the patriarchy, and all forms of bigotry. This did not look like a disheveled all-over-the-map protest. It looked CONNECTED — one for all and all for one! A Big Thread that ran through the huge crowds that had gathered! A beautiful sight. Please, more of this!
   

2. THE HOMEMADE SIGNS! Amazing! Outstanding! Brutal! Hilarious! The old days of protesting with everyone handed a pre-printed sign with boring, inane, tired slogans and rhetoric are now officially over, thanks to all of you! Earlier this year, after Donald Trump demanded a portrait be taken down because he didn’t like it, I sponsored a nationwide homemade art contest encouraging all of you to create your own true and unflinching portrait of Donald Trump. HUNDREDS of you responded and sent me pics of your satirical, audacious works of art. They were fantastic!

So yesterday, I asked you to send me photographs from the NO KINGS protest you were going to attend. Hundreds of you sent me moving photos, some of them very simple, of what it looked like on a day when America decided to get up off the sofa, leave the house, and demand that the destruction of our government cease immediately. Below, I have posted a number of the hundreds of pics many of you sent me yesterday and today. So awesomely cool. Thank you! All of you! More to come very soon. We are on fire and we will stop Trump and his thugs.

And if you think that for some reason we can’t pull this off, well, there’s always this crowd (see the photos after this paragraph) which has taken a solemn oath to defend the Constitution and protect us from all enemies, foreign AND domestic. Call me crazy, but I have this weird feeling they may be the first to step up and help us:

I dunno. Just a guess. That they probably hated being called “fat” and “suckers & losers” and spoken to as if they were two-year olds. Oh, the poor two-year olds who must now grow up in the midst of all this madness!

Let’s do this for them.

Sincerely yours, with no kings, queens, or luxury jumbo jets from Qatar,

Michael Moore
“D” in Art Class
3rd Grade
St. John’s Elementary School

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Here are some of the pictures from the NO KINGS rallies that you sent in to me yesterday and today…

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Speaking of your POTUS Portraits, those masterpieces can be found here, here and here — someday I’ll put them all in a real People’s Art Gallery!

Sending masked thugs into our cities to randomly round-up people and take them away.

Gutting healthcare that will end insurance to 15 million Americans.

Rigging election maps to eliminate Congressional seats in Black and Hispanic districts.

Making free speech “terrorism” and promising to arrest leaders of the “radical left” as traitors.

A daily spewing of lies, threats, indictments, ending environmental regulations, canceling food and drug safety enforcement, and so much more.

This is all meant to scare us, to make sure we feel helpless and hopeless, to shut us down. To destroy this country.

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Tomorrow, Saturday, October 18, history is going to be made by you and I and millions of others. In what many are predicting to be the largest one-day nationwide demonstration in the history of the United States — there are already thousands of marches, rallies and gatherings scheduled in over 2,500 towns and cities across the U.S.! There is one happening near you! To find out the location and time of your local event tomorrow, please go to NoKings.org to find the protest near you. There’s one right around the corner from your home or within a short drive or bike ride!

Don’t miss this chance to be part of the largest expression of free speech we’ve ever had. Time has run out. One year from now, don’t find yourself wishing you had done something. Said something. This is our last chance, the final moment to stop the madness. I implore you to join us. Ten million people are expected to attend! Please be one of them. Take your family and friends!

And if you live in other countries, there are dozens of local protests across the world being held to oppose the global spread of 21st century fascism. Find out where at NoKings.org.

I’ll see you out in the streets tomorrow! Send me pics at mike@michaelmoore.com and I’ll post a whole bunch of them.

We will not be defeated. We will take our country back. There are more of us than there are of them — in the millions!

In solidarity,

Michael Moore

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Marjorie Taylor Greene than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

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When the escalator at the United Nations came to a wrenching and sudden stop this past Tuesday as soon as Trump stepped on it, I would like to believe that future historians will record that as the pivotal, split-second moment which marked the beginning of the end of the Trump Reign of Terror.

A Terror that began — and ended — on an escalator.

June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower — to September 23, 2025, at the United Nations.

When the escalator at the UN came to that sudden and unexpected halt, was that the sign we had been waiting for? The escalator! Is it possible that the escalator’s complete loss of power, its instant paralyzation, its seemingly abrupt and total collapse meant that this too was the end of the Reign of Donald J. Trump?

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Go with me on this. I want us to imagine what life might look like in a Post-Escalator, Post-Trump World.

But you’re asking, how can I say we are in “Post-Trump” when right now you can turn on any TV and see him pouring the final load of concrete over the Rose Garden?

But what if from that instant forward on Tuesday, from the moment that escalator ground to a stop and he was frozen, stuck, unable to move, stripped of his strength and his powers to demolish the government, no more swinging that big black pen to sign hateful executive orders, incapacitated, emasculated, no idea what to do, immobilized, impotent, crippled, neutered — oh no, there goes Melania! — Trump’s deer-in-headlights look on his face — and all of a sudden millions of Americans everywhere took to the streets in a historic wave of protests and mass civil disobedience!

By the next week, a General Strike was called and the country was shut down!

Then a thousand “Mamdanis” across the nation took out petitions to run for office in the 2026 elections, many of them seeking to primary the Terror Reign’s chief enablers: the elected Democratic Party hacks who were incapable of fighting and representing the true will of the American people!

It didn’t stop there! More and more judges began ruling against fascist edicts. Out of work journalists in nearly every state announced they were starting worker-owned media outlets that would cover the real news. Numerous citizens from every region launched creative mass actions to disrupt the oligarchy, doing everything from cancelling their Disney+ and Paramount+ subscriptions, to offering car rides to women in red states in need of reproductive health care, to doing locally whatever the equivalent was to nonviolently sabotaging the teleprompters of a compliant media and shutting down the escalators of politicians on their climb to the top where they sought to crush our Democracy for good.

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Yes, it was a new day in America! All it took was somebody hitting a panic button or pulling a plug. “You’re all going to hell!” he barked at the gathered nations on First Avenue.

But nobody heard him say anything as someone had cut the speaker system in the UN Assembly’s auditorium! The world had silenced him. 157 countries now recognize Palestine as an equal nation with full rights. The UN sent a strong message to the United States: We know who you are. You are the bank that funds and arms a horrific genocide. History will remember that about you.

Although this decrepit state we are in did not start with Trump — its origins can be traced back to the election of Ronald Reagan (and specifically, to August 5, 1981, when he fired all 11,345 striking air traffic controllers) — I, for now, will skip taking us further back to the founding fathers declaring that Black human beings were only 3/5 of a human being, and then, these wise old white men, they made sure women went entirely unmentioned in the Constitution as if they didn’t exist at all (which was essentially reaffirmed in 2022 by Alito, Kavanaugh & Co. in the Dobbs decision, stripping all women of their reproductive rights).

Yes. Imagine! The crash of a teleprompter, a sound system and an escalator, all within minutes of each other, brought an end to all the madness. Trump would never recover. As the great poet T. S. Eliot once wrote in his epic poem “The Hollow Men”:

“This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends:
Not with a bang
but a whimper.”

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Marjorie Taylor Greene than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

Meet the next Mayor of New York City — Zohran Mamdani! I often live on the street where he’s standing in this clip below. Take 30 seconds and watch him tell the evildoers — i.e., the corrupt Landlords — what he’s going to do to them:

That’s right. This is the 33-year old candidate whom the majority of New Yorkers voted for in the June Primary! In a landslide!

Mamdani — the Democratic Socialist! (Sorry, I just like shouting “BOO!!!” at the filthy rich every now and then because the only word that scares them more than “TAXES!!!” or “TAP WATER!!!” is “SOCIALISM!”)

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And Mamdani’s a Muslim! Who rightly calls what Israel is doing “a genocide.” He wants the US to stop funding and arming it. He supports — as does most of the world — the international boycott, divestment and sanctioning of Israel for its war crimes.

And now, for the part that the media has buried:

Here in this place, the city so nice they named it twice(!), New York, New York — the largest Jewish city in the world outside of Israel — the latest polls show Mr. Mamdani is poised to win the Jewish Vote in a landslide come November. According to a poll last week by Zenith Research, 43% of all Jewish voters are voting for Mamdani.

Only 26% say they would vote for Cuomo who, after losing the Primary, is now running as an independent.

In fact, almost one-quarter of all Orthodox Jewish voters plan to vote for Mamdani.

In July, Cuomo was recorded at a private event at a synagogue admitting and lamenting how badly he had lost to Mamdani, saying:

“I would wager that in the primary, more than 50% of the Jewish people voted for Mamdani.”

The way we win — and the way Mamdani won — is with a class-based economic message that promises affordable housing, a livable wage, no one goes hungry and there are free buses like they have in Boston, Baltimore, Savannah, Missoula, Albuquerque, Tucson, Raleigh, Richmond and two dozen other U.S. cities. Imagine in the town or city where you live if someone like this was your Mayor.

And why not!

I swear there is a Zohran Mamdani where you live. She is personable, inspiring, smart, a hard worker and an organizer who will bring out the vote. You need to find that person and get them to run. Or maybe you’re that person!

Whatever the case, we’ve been exposed to so many pathetic politicians over the years, that this section of our brains, when it hears the word “candidate,” it sees a picture of Mitch McConnell or Eric Adams or Kristi Noem.

The Truth is, when a competent progressive runs for office, they often win. That’s because most of the voting public already takes the liberal or progressive position on most issues (read the facts here). In the rural town where I spend much of my time, in the 2016 Democratic Primary, Bernie not only won the state of Michigan, he won my town by a vote of 65% for Sanders and 33% for Clinton. I can swear there aren’t more than 6 people locally who would call themselves a “socialist.”

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Many of you would be surprised by how well you’d do if you ran. And if not you, then convince the beloved coach of the high school girls basketball team to run! Or a hometown hero who saved the community swimming pool! Or that Iraq War vet who came back and told the people at his church “Bush lied to us. There were no weapons of mass destruction. And Saddam had ZERO to do with 9/11!” Your neighbors admired his honesty and courage. They’d all vote for him.

But back to New York City. Mamdani isn’t the Mayor yet. He has to win the General Election in November. The ultra rich are forming a dozen PACs and have already raised millions of dollars to stop Mamdani at all costs. The old guard of the Democratic (“We Lose Elections!”) Party have refused to endorse Mamdani — even though he won the DEMOCRATIC primary! Chuck Schumer. Hakeem Jeffries. Governor Kathy Hochul. Senator Hillary Clinton. President Bill Clinton. Not one of them has endorsed him. Proving once again how out of touch they are and begging to lose more races next year. It’s absolutey disgusting to see these Democratic “leaders” trying to crush Mamdani’s candidacy. The New York Times announced last year that they would no longer endorse candidates in local elections — but then they decided that Mamdani was such a threat that, just days before the election, they endorsed the idea that no one should vote for him — a desperate attempt to defeat him with no chance for him to respond. It backfired. If anything, it told New Yorkers that the elites were trying to protect their wealth, the high rents they collect from the working and middle class, their immoral tax cuts for themselves — all by snookering the voters into fearing the Muslim candidate. Since his overwhelming primary victory, the media has run one story after another snidely attacking Mamdani with false predictions that the wealthy will soon flee the city and businesses will move to… New Jersey? The local media has tried to scare the Jewish community into believing that they will be less safe with Mamdani — who’s been endorsed after the primary by numerous rabbis and Jewish Voice for Peace. What’s driving them crazy is that the vast, vast majority of young people are not only voting for him, they are knocking on the doors of hundreds of thousands of voters. Never before have this many young adults voted. They’ve had enough.

So, I’m doing what I can to help him. If you want to get involved, go here. He began his campaign with nothing. He initially polled at just 1%! Nobody knew who he was (he’s been a State Assembly member for 5 years) — and now he’s got much of the city behind him.

And get this: He’s only been an American citizen for 7 years! Haha! Yes, this is the candidate who won the Primary! By a record margin for the city’s modern era. I’m guessing he’ll be victorious in November. Many who were full of despair, and stayed home on Election Day last year (thus handing Trump the election), have now been reinvigorated, and fired up due to candidates like Zohran Mamdani.

The country has been in shock after 7+ months of Trump back in the White House. The only way for the majority of the country to take control again is for people like you to rise up, get involved and perhaps either run — or find someone to run — for office. An unknown 33-year old, smart as a whip, born in Uganda, decided he was one of those people.

And now please watch Zohran Mamdani two more times:

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Marjorie Taylor Greene than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

Please vote for Zohran Mamdani for Mayor. An amazing human being, a fighter for justice, and finally a chance to have a mayor who’s on the side of the people. He will tax the rich and make life easier for the poor. Working people will run this city, not the Oligarchs. How does a creep like Andrew Cuomo (who just moved to the city last year to run for mayor) even think he should ever hold office again? Oh. Right. We elected his doppelgänger as President in November.

Stop the madness. Vote for Zohran!

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Marjorie Taylor Greene than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

We woke up this morning to the news that Trump was considering declaring California a police state (by literally sending in the Marines from Camp Pendleton to suppress the anti-ICE protests in LA), that Netanyahu was thinking of killing Greta Thunberg if she dares to dock her humanitarian aid boat on the beach in Gaza today, and that we are now in the 7th day of the messy Shouldn't This Be on Bravo Musk-Trump breakup.

Every day since November 5th, I receive hundreds of emails from you —and the majority of them ask me one or more of three simple questions:

1. “How did this happen?!”

2. “Who is to blame?”

3. “What can we do to save ourselves/ save the country/ save the Planet?”

The sweet thing about these questions is that most people seem to think we are salvageable, that there’s still time to figure out what happened and that there might still be hope for us — “all is not lost!”

But what if we are sadly just deluding ourselves, that we already went over the cliff, that so much has already been dismantled and destroyed in a few short months it will take us years or decades to fix or rebuild that which Thanos has disintegrated.

It’s truly too much to bear if we consider the worst case scenario and so, being human, we hold on to this thing called hope, in the hopes that it will paint a picture for us that gives us a reason to carry on.

But in order to find that path to a better world and future, we must first be honest with ourselves about the true predicament we are in, acknowledging that we can’t get from Point A to Point B if we don’t even know where Point A is, let alone be able to discern what tools and people we have left in order to start the rebuild — or better yet, lead the rebellion to take back our “democracy.”

Enter Chris Hedges who has written a powerful piece that confronts exactly how we got here — and the truth about the moment we are living through right now.

Please read this and share it widely.

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The Rule of Idiots

In the last days of all empires the idiots take over. They mirror the collective stupidity of a civilization that has detached itself from reality.

CHRIS HEDGES

The last days of dying empires are dominated by idiots. The Roman, Mayan, French, Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanoff, Iranian and Soviet dynasties crumbled under the stupidity of their decadent rulers who absented themselves from reality, plundered their nations and retreated into echo chambers where fact and fiction were indistinguishable.

Donald Trump, and the sycophantic buffoons in his administration, are updated versions of the reigns of the Roman emperor Nero, who allocated vast state expenditures to attain magical powers; the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who funded repeated expeditions to a mythical island of immortals to bring back a potion that would give him eternal life; and a feckless Tsarist court that sat around reading tarot cards and attending séances as Russia was decimated by a war that consumed over two million lives and revolution brewed in the streets.

In “Hitler and the Germans,” the political philosopher Eric Voegelin dismisses the idea that Hitler — gifted in oratory and political opportunism, but poorly educated and vulgar — mesmerized and seduced the German people. The Germans, he writes, supported Hitler and the “grotesque, marginal figures,” surrounding him because he embodied the pathologies of a diseased society, one beset by economic collapse and hopelessness. Voegelin defines stupidity as a “loss of reality.” The loss of reality means a “stupid” person cannot “rightly orient his action in the world, in which he lives.” The demagogue, who is always an idiote, is not a freak or social mutation. The demagogue expresses the society’s zeitgeist, its collective departure from a rational world of verifiable fact.

These idiots, who promise to recapture lost glory and power, do not create. They only destroy. They accelerate the collapse. Limited in intellectual ability, lacking any moral compass, grossly incompetent and filled with rage at established elites who they see as having slighted and rejected them, they remake the world into a playground for grifters, con artists and megalomaniacs. They make war on universities, banish scientific research, peddle quack theories about vaccines as a pretext to expand mass surveillance and data sharing, strip legal residents of their rights and empower armies of goons, which is what the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become, to spread fear and ensure passivity. Reality, whether the climate crisis or the immiseration of the working class, does not impinge on their fantasies. The worse it gets, the more idiotic they become.

Hannah Arendt blames a society that willingly embraces radical evil on this collective “thoughtlessness.” Desperate to escape from the stagnation, where they and their children are trapped, hopeless and in despair, a betrayed population is conditioned to exploit everyone around them in a desperate scramble to advance. People are objects to be used, mirroring the cruelty inflicted by the ruling class.

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A society convulsed by disorder and chaos, as Voegelin points out, celebrates the morally degenerate, those who are cunning, manipulative, deceitful and violent. In an open, democratic society, these attributes are despised and criminalized. Those who exhibit them are condemned as stupid; “a man [or woman] who behaves in this way,” Voegelin notes, “will be socially boycotted.” But the social, cultural and moral norms in a diseased society are inverted. The attributes that sustain an open society — a concern for the common good, honesty, trust and self-sacrifice — are ridiculed. They are detrimental to existence in a diseased society.

When a society, as Plato notes, abandons the common good, it always unleashes amoral lusts — violence, greed and sexual exploitation — and fosters magical thinking, the focus of my book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.”

The only thing these dying regimes do well is spectacle. These bread and circuses acts — like Trump’s $40 million Army parade to be held on his birthday on June 14 — keep a distressed population entertained.

The Disneyfication of America, the land of eternally happy thoughts and positive attitudes, the land where everything is possible, is peddled to mask the cruelty of economic stagnation and social inequality. The population is conditioned by mass culture, dominated by sexual commodification, banal and mindless entertainment and graphic depictions of violence, to blame itself for failure.

Søren Kierkegaard in “The Present Age” warns that the modern state seeks to eradicate conscience and shape and manipulate individuals into a pliable and indoctrinated “public.” This public is not real. It is, as Kierkegaard writes, a “monstrous abstraction, an all-embracing something which is nothing, a mirage.” In short, we became part of a herd, “unreal individuals who never are and never can be united in an actual situation or organization — and yet are held together as a whole.” Those who question the public, those who denounce the corruption of the ruling class, are dismissed as dreamers, freaks or traitors. But only they, according to the Greek definition of the polis, can be considered citizens.

Thomas Paine writes that a despotic government is a fungus that grows out of a corrupt civil society. This is what happened to past societies. It is what happened to us.

It is tempting to personalize the decay, as if ridding ourselves of Trump will return us to sanity and sobriety. But the rot and corruption has ruined all of our democratic institutions, which function in form, not in content. The consent of the governed is a cruel joke. Congress is a club on the take from billionaires and corporations. The courts are appendages of corporations and the rich. The press is an echo chamber of the elites, some of whom do not like Trump, but none of whom advocate the social and political reforms that could save us from despotism. It is about how we dress up despotism, not despotism itself.

The historian Ramsay MacMullen, in “Corruption and the Decline of Rome,” writes that what destroyed the Roman Empire was “the diverting of governmental force, its misdirection.” Power became about enriching private interests. This misdirection renders government powerless, at least as an institution that can address the needs and protect the rights of the citizenry. Our government, in this sense, is powerless. It is a tool of corporations, banks, the war industry and oligarchs. It cannibalizes itself to funnel wealth upwards.

“[T]he decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness,” Edward Gibbon writes. “Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring whythe Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted for so long.”

The Roman emperor Commodus, like Trump, was entranced with his own vanity. He commissioned statues of himself as Hercules and had little interest in governance. He fancied himself a star of the arena, staging gladiatorial contests where he was crowned the victor and killing lions with a bow and arrow. The empire — he renamed Rome the Colonia Commodiana (Colony of Commodus) — was a vehicle to satiate his bottomless narcissism and lust for wealth. He sold public offices the way Trump sells pardons and favors to those who invest in his cryptocurrencies or donate to his inauguration committee or presidential library.

Finally, the emperor’s advisors arranged to have him strangled to death in his bath by a professional wrestler after he announced that he would assume the consulship dressed as a gladiator. But his assassination did nothing to halt the decline. Commodus was replaced by the reformer Pertinax who was assassinated three months later. The Praetorian Guards auctioned off the office of emperor. The next emperor, Didius Julianus, lasted 66 days. There would be five emperors in A.D. 193, the year after the assassination of Commodus.

Like the late Roman Empire, our republic is dead.

Our constitutional rights — due process, habeas corpus, privacy, freedom from exploitation, fair elections and dissent — have been taken from us by judicial and legislative fiat. These rights exist only in name. The vast disconnect between the purported values of our faux democracy and reality means our political discourse, the words we use to describe ourselves and our political system, are absurd.

Walter Benjamin wrote in 1940 amid the rise of European fascism and looming world war:

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

Our decay, our illiteracy and collective retreat from reality, was long in the making. The steady erosion of our rights, especially our rights as voters, the transformation of the organs of state into tools of exploitation, the immiseration of the working poor and middle class, the lies that saturate our airwaves, the degrading of public education, the endless and futile wars, the staggering public debt, the collapse of our physical infrastructure, mirror the last days of all empires.

Trump the pyromaniac entertains us as we go down.

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Covering US foreign policy, economic realities, and civil liberties in American society.

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Marjorie Taylor Greene than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.

What if we all took a new pledge?

For you. For me. For the people and for the country that deep down — in spite of its MAGA-heads, in spite of its insanity — we’ve decided to fight for its survival, holding onto a belief that we can make it better, that we can fix it, that we can end the madness and create a true Democracy for which it stands.

I’ve taken the liberty of writing one for us on this day:

"I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE
TO THE PEOPLE
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
AND TO THE DEMOCRACY
FOR WHICH WE ALL STAND:

ONE PERSON, 
ONE VOTE,

ONE NATION,
PART OF ONE WORLD,

EVERYONE! 
A SEAT AT THE TABLE!
EVERYONE!
A SLICE OF THE PIE!

WITH LIBERTY 
AND JUSTICE,

EQUALITY
AND KINDNESS,

AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
FOR ALL."

I would love to speak these words each morning with all of you!

And then — WE ACT!

We do not have a minute to spare.

Think of it this way: You would not skip a day without brushing your teeth. You would not skip a day without eating a meal (or three). You do not skip a day without checking your email. You don’t skip a day without reading or watching some news or a True Crime special.

What if you were to put even just one small individual political action on that everyday “To-Do” list?

Each day, something.

Just one thing.

Our hearts do not go more than a second without creating a beat. Our lungs do not skip more than 3 seconds without taking a breath. Can we all, all of us, together, pledge to not skip a day right now without taking some simple sort of political action?

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It’s easier than you think, my friends. Check out this video of average, everyday Kentuckians who last month all dressed up alike, printed some signs, and marched through Lexington effing Kentucky to warn people of the current fascist threat:

Amazing. I know, just another day in the Bluegrass State.

Let’s brainstorm a list! Send me yours in the comments below! (Comments are open to everyone today.) Here’s a few we can start with:

• Actions that take 30 seconds.

  Example: Write to any one of your elected representatives (Go here and follow the links) with your one sentence demand of the day: “You must VOTE NO on Trump’s Big Ugly Bill!”

• Actions that take one minute.

  Example: Call your member of Congress (Call the Capitol Switchboard and tell them your zip code and they will connect you: (202) 224-3121 or go to 5Calls.org ) and tell them something that you are for or against (for Medicaid, against the slaughter in Gaza, for abortion rights, against deporting 11 million people). It takes less than a minute. These calls matter mightily.

• Actions that take 3-5 minutes.

  Example: Sign up with a local organizing group to find ways to connect with people in your area. Do it now! Just Google “progressive groups near [insert town, state]” — or check these groups: SwingLeft | Indivisible | Choose Democracy. These are your allies in your community (you are not alone!) — and they’ve got lots of things going on. There’s no better time to join in than right now.

• Actions that take 5-10 minutes.

  Example: Create a handmade sign on a piece of cardboard that you will hold at your next big local march or rally (like the ones coming up nationwide on June 14th). Or call a friend or family member and get them to join the group you just joined. Or take a few minutes to decide which office you’re running for next year! (Take A Seat | Run For Something). Yes, you! Start small: Precinct Delegate. Library Board. PTA treasurer. Parish Council. Daisies co-leader. It’s all political. And it’s necessary that people like us see to it that our values are present and affecting and inspiring others.

How about it? Let’s start now!

One. Simple. Action.

Today. Tomorrow. Together.

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May 4th, 1970. Kent State University.

The war in Vietnam was a massacre. The students at Kent State had set up an encampment to protest this war crime against humanity. A genocide.

And the National Guard went in and mowed them down. Over 60 bullets fired in just 13 seconds.

13 were shot. 4 were killed: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. HALF of the dead weren’t even protesting. They were just walking to class.

Shortly after, the New York Times was quick to report the justification concocted by the killers who ran the Ohio National Guard:

In Columbus, Sylvester Del Corso, Adjutant General of the Ohio National Guard, said in a statement that the guardsmen had been forced to shoot after a sniper opened fire against the troops from a nearby rooftop and the crowd began to move to encircle the guardsmen.

A lie. There was no sniper.

But that didn’t matter. The seed was planted in print, and then watered in a corroborating statement by President Nixon — also quoted by the NYTimes:

“This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy. It is my hope that this tragic and unfortunate incident will strengthen the determination of all the nation's campuses, administrators, faculty and students alike to stand firmly for the right which exists in this country of peaceful dissent and just as strongly against the resort to violence as a means of such expression.”

Another lie. The students were not violent.

The great Neil Young of Crosby Stills Nash & Young saw the photographs of the dead students laying lifeless on the campus grounds. He picked up his guitar and within the hour wrote what would become one of the most iconic anti-war songs of all time, Ohio. CSN&Y already had a hit song that week, Teach Your Children, which was still climbing the charts. Nonetheless, they recorded Ohio in about an hour at their studio and released it on radio stations across the country. They were determined to be part of the uprising that was now underway.

Ten days after Kent State, there was another mass school shooting carried out by the police. It got less press, but was just as awful.

This one was in Mississippi at the historically Black college, Jackson State College. Students at this campus encampment were protesting the Vietnam War and the never-ending racism of the American south. The state police responded by firing 460 bullets.

At least a dozen people were injured. And two — 21-year-old Jackson State student, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, and 17-year-old high school student, James Earl Green, who was walking through campus on his way home from work — were murdered by the police.

There were no charges. Just like Kent State, the initial reports said the campus protestors brought the violence upon themselves and just like Kent State, the cops said that “a sniper had fired on them from the Women’s dorm on campus.” Because, as we all know, the sniper always shoots from the Women’s dorm.

Again, there was no sniper.

In both cases — at both schools — the government lied to justify the government’s violence and the press dutifully repeated these lies. And most of the people in the country… they just went along with it.

The cops said they were under fire! A sniper had shot at them! The National Guard and the state police had no choice but to fire back!

Blame the college kids for as long as you can and just keep murdering people — it’s like we are living through a Hollywood studio reboot. The cops are good, the students are bad, free speech is okay, but sometimes you have to shoot the protestors. Sometimes you must arrest them, detain them, deport them, or even kill them.

At 16, this was my takeaway: Our own government has no problem killing any of us, regardless of whether we oppose that government or not. Your only crime can simply be you are Black, you’re a woman, you’re a college student who wanted to get an education instead of signing up to go kill Vietnamese.

My takeaway now, 55 years later, is how, those of us who are white, we are trained from birth to lie, to twist the truth so that it doesn’t make us look too bad. So we keep our language “measured.” Calm. Collected. White.

And all of that makes us a lie.

Our resistance must start by resisting ourselves. We must stop the lies. We must confront those in authority who make up stories about why students are protesting, and how they are protesting. Instead of attacking young people who are brave enough to stand for what is right, we must join with them, and support them, and give amplification to what they are saying.

Allison, Sandra, Jeffrey and William, you may have died at Kent State that day, but your sacrifice was not in vain. You are remembered to this day as you will be remembered for the next hundred years — a reminder to all of us that if we are to preserve the Democracy, if we are to create a peaceful planet, it will require courage. And it may come with significant risks.

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio

Gotta get down to it, soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been gone long ago
What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it, soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been gone long ago
What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio

Four dead in Ohio (four)
Four dead in Ohio (I said four, I said four)
Four dead in Ohio (how many more?)
Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (I wanna know why)
Four dead in Ohio (you better tell me why)
Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (why did they die?)

Four dead in Ohio (you tell me why)
Four dead in Ohio (I said why)
Four dead in Ohio (I wanna know why)
Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (I said why)
Four dead in Ohio (why, Lord?)
Four dead in Ohio (why did they die?)
Four dead in Ohio (I said why)

Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (yeah, why?)
Four dead in Ohio (please tell me why)
Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (I wanna know)
Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (why did they died)
Four dead in Ohio (you tell me why)

Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio (why?)
Four dead in Ohio

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** In order to have a troll-free, hate-free comments section — and because if there’s one thing I know about my crazy haters, they would rather spend an eternity in hell with Marjorie Taylor Greene than send me $5 if forced to become a paid subscriber — my Comments section here on my Substack is limited to paid subscribers. But, not to worry — anyone can send me their comments, opinions and thoughts by writing to me at mike@michaelmoore.com. I read every one of them, though obviously I can’t respond to all. The solution here is not optimal but it has worked and my Comments section has become a great meeting place for people wanting to discuss the ideas and issues I raise here. There is debate and disagreement, but it is refreshing to have it done with respect and civility, unfettered by the stench of bigotry and Q-anon insanity.