Michael Moore shares footage of mail-bomb suspect at Trump's rally

By Shuvrajit Das Biswas

Oct 30, 2018

12:35 am

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What's the story

Michael Moore is an American director with films like 'Fahrenheit 9/11' that explored how the Bush government exploited media to justify middle-eastern invasions. Notably, his 2018 film 'Fahrenheit 11/9' explored the impact of Trump's presidency. Now, interestingly Moore's crosshair-painted picture was found in mail-bombing suspect, Cesar Sayoc's, van. When the news of Sayoc's arrest broke, Moore realized he had filmed him. Here's more.

Do you know?

What went on inside the mind of Cesar Sayoc?

Sayoc, a vocal Trump supporter and a member of the Republican Party, was recently arrested on suspicion of having sent mail-bombs to several Trump's critics like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Robert De Niro, and prominent anti-Trump institution- the CNN New York headquarters.

Footage details

Make America hate again?

While shooting for 'Fahrenheit 11/9', Moore tried to portray the socio-economic and cultural impact of Trump's presidency. With this in mind, the filming crew attended Trump's first 2020 re-election rally in Melbourne, Florida. While filming the crowd to gauge their reactions, they caught Sayoc on tape. Propagating pro-Trump rhetoric, he was chanting 'CNN sucks'. Notably, this clip was excluded from the film's final cut.

Instagram Post

Read Moore's Instagram post here

My crew first encountered Cesar Sayoc, the mail bomber/terrorist, 20 months ago when we went down to Melbourne, Florida, to film Trump’s first “Trump 2020 Re-election Rally” — just one month after his inauguration. My direction to my producer Basel Hamdan and our longtime collaborator Eric Weinrib was to NOT film Trump, but rather only film the people who came out to see him. My feeling was, after one month in office, we didn’t need to hear anything more from Trump’s mouth — we already knew everything we needed to know about him. Who we needed to understand were our fellow Americans, lost souls full of anger and possible violence, easily fed a pile of lies so large and toxic that we wondered if there would ever be a chance that we could bring them back from the Dark Side. Our footage of Mr. Sayoc would never make it into the final cut of what would be the film that is now in its last week in cinemas across America. But I’d like to share it with you, if only to give you a momentary glimpse of him in action (all are free to use this video and share it). You’ve seen the photos of him on the news over the past couple days– a slight, normal, everyday American. But those are from before. Here with our footage I can show you what he had actually become — overdosed on steroids in what looks like some desperate attempt to hang on to what was left of his manhood. Men, people like Cesar have been led to believe, were and are under attack by the likes of Hillary and Michelle and all those “feminazis” who’ve had but one mission: political castration. The theft of power from the patriarchy that had been in place for 10,000 years. The end of men…[1/3]

Threat

So far so good for Moore

After finding Moore's picture in Sayoc's van, authorities checked his mail for bomb threats. Everything appeared fine. Now, Moore's reasons behind sharing the footage was to show the impact of Trump's propaganda on such people. Notably, his views were echoed by Jeff Zucker, CNN President, who said, Trump's and his administration's 'words matter'.

Opinion

The phallocentrism underlying extreme nationalism

Moore and this writer share the opinion, that people like Sayoc were brainwashed into believing ideologies supporting women empowerment, climate change would lead to 'political castration', orchestrated by 'feminazis' like Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton. Moore's deep-seated patriarchy rebelled against this as he tried to cling on to his manhood by projecting a steroid-filled muscular exterior. His bombing attempts too were a reaction formation.

Moore's opinion

Make America actually great again

Moore opined hate-filled right-wing propaganda was rising in America post-Donald Trump's Presidency. Enabled by media outlets like Fox News, Moore believed, such 'toxic' lies incited violence in people. He linked Sayoc's incident with the recent Pittsburgh shooting, citing them as actions against people their 'leader has told them to hate'. However, he believes this hateful climate will not last, as voters will oust Trump.