December 24, 2023

There is a social contract between citizens and politicians in democracies around the world - we accept that they lie. During the second half of the 20th Century, it became part of the deal between the people, the politicians and the media that connect them. We became almost comfortable with it. But in 2015 something was happening in America that felt very different. I was fascinated by the scale of the lying, and more specifically the manufacturing of entire narratives with the sole purpose of influencing political
outcomes.

I travelled to the United States and secured the opportunity to interview Roger Stone, and everything changed. Negotiations, fundraisers, strategy sessions, trials, gag orders, lawyers, billionaires, secret meetings, public hearings, we went on a wild ride through the halls of power, voting and the application of political influence in America today. It wasn’t pretty, and it almost took my life at one point.

What I learned is that like all Democracies around the world, it is starting to feel like a very substantive transformation of Democracy is inevitable in America, and it’s frightening.  The rise of the internet, social media and citizen journalism was initially heralded as good for spreading democracy and the values of free societies.  It began to make us believe that the powerful can no longer hide behind controlled narratives. Now it has become the perfect place to overwhelm the truth. The loudest liar wins.  

Can American Democracy evolve in the face of such rapid change across the media landscape, and so much extreme wealth grabbing for power, or is it headed for an actual collapse into a more arcane form of governance? This is what I am left with after making this film, and it’s not a comfortable set of circumstances to contemplate. 
 

- Christoffer Guldbrandsen