How American Democracy Reached a Moment of ‘Existential Crisis’

The FRONTLINE Dispatch

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4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the midterms draw near amid continuing false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, FRONTLINE examines how American democracy reached this point. Veteran filmmaker Michael Kirk joins host Raney Aronson-Rath, FRONTLINE’s editor-in-chief and executive producer, for a special live recording of The FRONTLINE Dispatch to discuss what FRONTLINE’s season premiere, Lies, Politics and Democracy, reveals.

The two-hour documentary, structured as a countdown to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, illuminates critical decisions that have profoundly undermined faith in the electoral process, leading to what journalist Tim Alberta says in the film is an “existential crisis for the United States of America."

Kirk discusses a series of "inflection points" in which Republican leaders embraced the rhetoric of Donald Trump even as warning signs mounted.

"This was the leadership agreeing to be silent,” Kirk says, “agreeing to think they were gonna manipulate him, and then being manipulated themselves."

Lies, Politics and Democracy is now streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS Video App and FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This election was stolen from you, from me and from the country.
0:07.0	You'll never take back our country with weakness.
0:11.0	You have to show strength and you have to be strong.
0:15.0	What was incredibly shocking to me was the number of Republicans and lawmakers who,
0:21.0	quote unquote, should know better.
0:23.0	Who were encouraging the president, who were standing by him.
0:26.0	Something had led to a moment wherein Trump's people were completely unmotivated
0:30.0	to accept anything other than unqualified victory as valid.
0:35.0	I rise to object to the counting of the electoral ballots from Arizona.
0:40.0	The Republican Party is the party of Trump.
0:42.0	Is the objection signed by a senator?
0:44.0	Yes it is.
0:46.0	Frontline season premiere lies politics and democracy,
0:50.0	documents critical moments that have profoundly changed in challenge America
0:55.0	over the past seven years.
0:57.0	Drawing on interviews with more than 30 former government officials,
1:01.0	political journalists and experts, the film examines threats to our democracy.
1:06.0	The erosion of confidence in our elections is an existential crisis for the United States of America.
1:13.0	I'm Rainy Ernst and Roth, editor-in-chief and executive producer of Frontline,
1:17.0	and this is the Frontline Dispatch.
1:21.0	Last week lies politics and democracy filmmaker and veteran Frontline producer Michael Kirk,
1:30.0	joined me for a virtual event, a live Q&A with frontline subscribers,
	...

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