Trumping Democracy

Filmmaker Thomas Huchon's documentary on the 2016 presidential election—originally broadcast in France under the title Unfair Game—focuses only peripherally on the Russian interference that is the subject of so much hullabaloo in this country. Instead, it concentrates on the methods used by reclusive American billionaire Robert Mercer both to influence the outcome and to place his own people in the Trump inner circle. After interviews with Paul Horner, who produced admittedly phony stories for the Internet, and Scott LoBaido, a Trump supporter who feasted on such fake news, the film pivots to Mercer's expenditures benefitting conservative outlets like the Heritage Foundation and Breitbart as well as presidential candidate Ted Cruz. After Cruz faltered, Mercer switched his support to Trump and inserted Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and David Bossie into the campaign. Even more important, he was behind the campaign's employment of an English firm, Strategic Communications Laboratories, and its American offshoot Cambridge Analytica, which developed incredibly detailed personality profiles of voters who could be targeted for last-minute disinformation ads in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, where modest changes in the vote totals could tip the electoral college in Trump's favor. Huchon argues that the plan worked, and thus it was Mercer's manipulation, rather than Putin's machinations, that determined the outcome. Trumping Democracy's conspiratorial tone is somewhat of a mirror image of the technique Huchon deplores on the other side, but its tabloid approach—complete with striking graphics—makes for a provocative, if debatable, cinematic harangue. A strong optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)