Michael Winship writes the daily Bill Moyers & Co. blog.
Here he suggests a dozen classic American films about demagogues.
These will help you get through the weekend.
There is, of course, “Elmer Gantry.”
And “Citizen Kane.”
My favorite on the list, appropriate for now, is “The Manchurian Candidate.” Think of it as “The Siberian Candidate.”

I hear a remake of your favorite on the list is being made. It’ll be called “The Muscovite Candidate” and filming begins today at noon, Eastern.
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Apparently, this remake will be Yeah soft and sensual to fit the personality of the candidate
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38578885
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Here is how the Japanese imagine today’s soft and sensual events
https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15977308_10154700193665791_2736497148292028621_n.jpg?oh=cdc2e7259d040d32187102dde084b63d&oe=59170434
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Being taken back by the studio already for a new title .
Make America Puke Again and Again and Again.
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My old college advisor now ends all his emails with “Make American Grate Again.”
Wishing you all the best tomorrow. Will be there in spirit and am represented by my wife. Told her to stay clear of cranky, smart old guys from New York. Raise a whole lotta Hell!
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“Think of it as “The Siberian Candidate.”
I so appreciate your sense of humor, Diane. Such great timing, too!
I wonder how many people like me are seriously contemplating leaving this country today, because we have yet to figure out how we will be able to survive the next four years. I’m still working on figuring out, or have the faintest clue how each of us can take our “broken heart” and “make it into art.”
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Delete “or have the faintest clue” above. God or some other ethereal being prematurely hit enter as I was editing, not I.
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” wonder how many people like me are seriously contemplating leaving this country today, ”
Just take a short winter vacation. Petit Finger will be impeached in no time, and Pence will soon fall after for lack of personal appeal.
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Interesting: I went on a binge of reading Robert Stone’s novels about 20 years ago, but had no idea that “A Hall of Mirrors” had been filmed. The novel is creepy and hermetic, and Stone, if my memory serves, said in an interview with the Paris review that he was at the time he wrote it heavily under the sway of–here’s another Russian connection to all of this–Nikolai Gogol. It looks like this is available on YouTube, which is great news.
“The Manchurian Candidate” (the original–the remake leaves a great deal to be desired) is simply a masterpiece–basically a perfect film.
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Being There. Can’t beat Peter Sellers.
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My favorite film on confidence games is Confidence (2003)
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Olbermann’s latest, “Boycott the Inauguration”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH5l0IsBGJU
I’ll be curled up with a copy of the revised and expanded “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” The prologue alone is worth the reread.
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Sam Kinison sums things up nicely again. Sorry, couldn’t help myself again.
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Watch The Man in the High Castle on Amazon too.
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