I just got back from a longer-than-usual family holiday during which I did much less work than I usually do when I'm off (I recommend both to you!), but one exception I made was tuning into Michael Moore's outstanding new podcast, Rumble, which Moore records from his apartment, usually with a special guest (I tuned in when I saw that he'd done an episode with the wonderful Anand "Winners Take All" Giridharadas (previously).
I've been a fan of Moore's since I saw the premiere of Roger and Me in 1989 at the Toronto International Film Festival, and I've since enjoyed his movies, books and TV shows. I love his mix of comedic rhetoric, sharp political observations and simple, clear framing, and all of this reaches a kind of peak in the new podcast, where they are joined by a message of both hope and anger: Moore is unrelenting in painting a picture of just how messed up things are, but he's also fully committed to the possibility of action through change. Many of his podcasts (especially the recent episodes about Trump's drone assassination campaign and the possibility of impending war) end with a meaningful, targeted call-to-action.
2020 is a critical year, when, depending on how we act, things could make a sharp change for the better, or slip into a new low that's hard to imagine climbing out of. Moore's brand of rage-filled optimism is exactly the blend I needed to start my year off right.
