Democrats are looking forward to the 2018 midterm elections, but for that to happen, they'll have to start running people for office that can win elections, filmmaker Michael Moore said Monday.
"We have to start running people who can win and people who are beloved by the American people and who understand how to talk, you know, to the American people," Moore told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.
"Six out of the last seven elections, we've won the popular vote," Moore said. "The American public is liberal on the issues, right? The majority of Americans, women the same age as men, are pro-choice.
"They believe that there's climate change, go down the whole list . . . Why do we hold no power?"
Many people continue to support President Donald Trump, Moore continued, because "the Democrats have yet to offer what the alternative is."
"As we sit here today, even people [are saying] we're going to take the House back," said Moore. "It's like, really? Where are all those great candidates for next year?"
Meanwhile, Moore said he respects the "tenacity" of Republicans to stick behind an agenda item that the public may not embrace.
Senate Republicans, he pointed out, were awake at 2 a.m. last Friday trying to repeal Obamacare, "something that only 17 percent of the American people were in support of. You've got to admire the tenacity of that."
Moore's anti-Trump, one-man Broadway debut, "The Terms of My Surrender," opened on Friday. He said in the performance, he tries to answer how Trump won and how to prevent it from happening again.
Moore predicted last summer that Trump would win the presidency, and on Monday said he obviously needs "better communications skills," as he didn't succeed "in convincing either fellow liberals or Democrats that the tsunami was coming."
Also, said Moore, he could not convince the Clinton campaign to come to Michigan or Wisconsin to campaign.
"I have a thing in my show where there's like a 12-step program that Democrats need to be in right now to make sure this doesn't happen again," said Moore.
"We've won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections, and yet we sit here this morning with no power, nothing. They have everything. Democrats control six of the 50 state capitals. Six."
But Democrats aren't really disconnected, said Moore, as Clinton did get the majority vote, and another 7.5 million people voted either Green or Libertarian, meaning 10.5 million Americans did not want Trump to be president.
"The other side knew there was this thing called the Electoral College," said Moore.
Meanwhile, when Democrats move to the middle or to the right, they lose, said Moore.
"There's something about Democrats, they felt the only way we can win, we have to appeal to those Trump voters or whatever," said Moore. "What we have to appeal to are 8 million Obama voters that voted for Trump."
Moore encouraged people who are Democrats to seek a political office if they are qualified, even for local offices.
"This is how the right did this," said Moore. "They did it the right way. I have such, as I said to you before, respect and admiration for the other side because they get the right people running locally and then they have the courage of their convictions to stick to what they believe in."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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