Get Me Roger Stone shows the dark underbelly of politics from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump
Reflection has been a preoccupation for a majority of the country in the days since the 2016 election. Article after article, panel after panel, people have discussed the outcome in hushed tones, united in concern for the events that transpired and threatened a divided, complex nation. It’s as if the country is reeling from some new and sinister form of terrorism.
The burgeoning presidency of Donald Trump has since been plagued with lies and half-truths, Russians and Kellyanne Conway, and in four months the tone in United States has gone from dull CSPAN to dumb House of Cards. Something screwy has happened and everyone is scrambling to catch up.
But the truth is the election of Donald Trump isn’t as aberrant as liberals would like to believe. The wheels for this were set in motion long ago. It’s a pattern that’s easy to follow, if anyone is willing to look. There have been people, mostly in the background, working towards this type of nonfunctioning government for decades.
One of those individuals is the subject of a new documentary on Netflix. Get Me Roger Stone is not a hit piece, exactly. It’s subject, Stone, is a willful participant. He is unabashed about his involvement in the dark side of politics, which makes for a fascinating, if unsettling, character piece that should interest anyone wondering just how we got here as a nation.
Roger Stone, a self-described agent provocateur and master of dirty tricks, has been involved, one way or another, in almost every major Republican victory of the last 40 or 50 years. He began early, when around 13 or 14, he was given a copy of Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative. By the time he was 19, he was being called to testify before a grand jury about his involvement in Watergate.
As the film begins, he recounts several moments that impacted him as a child. One story is about how when he was in elementary school he was a fan of JFK. He convinced his friends to vote for him in the school election by telling them that Nixon was in favor of Saturday school. He says at that moment, he learned the power of disinformation.
After Watergate, Stone can be found at the arm of several of the darker GOP candidates, from Roy Cohn to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. In particular, he was part of the Reagan era lobbying firm Black, Manafort, and Stone, which placed lobbying front and center of our political system.
Black, Manafort, and Stone did quite a bit of work at the time for third world dictators. Paul Manafort, co-founder, is currently under investigation by the FBI and was a one-time advisor for the Trump campaign.
Stone also founded the National Conservative Political Action Committee, which paved the way for unlimited money in politics, helping to effectively drown out the voice of anyone not rich enough to buy a congressman. Suffice to say, Roger Stone is not without his detractors.
But for these things, Roger Stone is immensely proud. He has a tattoo of Nixon on his back, a reminder of the politics he promotes. The film begins and ends with Donald Trump, drawing lines through time and leading the audience to his victory. Stone himself is endlessly charming, despite his hatred for liberals. He refers to the filmmakers as liberals, pinkos, commies, etc. on multiple occasions, with a smile and a laugh, and disarming and congenial at all times.
Given Stone’s background, it would have been easy for the filmmakers to turn the film into an angry partisan warning a la Dinesh D’Souza, fact free and full of hate. But there really isn’t any invention needed.
Stone tells his story as he sees it. Anyone that argues with him are losers without two pennies to rub together. He dismisses his enemies with relish, and looking at the state of our current country, it’s hard to fault his outlook.
The Roger Stones of the world keep winning elections. Their tactics work. It all reminds me of Spaceballs. Evil will always triumph because good is dumb. Democracy is good. Democracy can be manipulated.
Donald Trump is president. Get Me Roger Stone shows why.