‘The Trial of the Chicago Seven’ Ends Up Making The Case For Trump

 

“Think about it. Or don’t. Maybe when you get out of here in a couple of years and go off to IBM or the Marines or something, you won’t be able to think about it; they’ll be doing the thinking for you.” — Abbie Hoffman

Netflix has steadily churned out anti-Trump content, like Trump: An American Dream, which one reviewer describes as “playing like a  supervillain origin story”), Meet the Trumps: From Immigrant to President, The Great Hack, and The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy, an examination of Trump’s failures to be produced by the Obamas. Netflix subscribers are primed to expect a copious assortment of entertainment options rife with anti-Trump messaging. However, Aaron Sorkin — a director and writer known for his progressive views and famed for his attempt to ostensibly portray both sides of ideological and political arguments on The West Wing — has unexpectedly presented what might be the most pro-Trump film I’ve yet to see on the streamer. Despite Sorkin’s attempt to wink at Trump haters, the underlying implications of the film quell the anti-Trump narrative, rendering those moments merely a reminder that we are viewing the 1960s through a 2020 lens.

In The Trial of the Chicago 7, Sorkin takes poetic license to rewrite relevant historical elements to convey a Sorkin version of history. His de-Jewification of a story that is arguably comprised of more people of Jewish heritage than of any other race is contemptible. There are several examples of Sorkin hiding Jewish references in the film, such as the yellow Jewish star-Holocaust-badges affixed to Rubin’s and Abbie’s courtroom clothing in 1969. It’s tantamount to recounting the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, but excluding the underlying anti-Semitism. It’s worth noting that they shared a history of Sonderkommando-judges and Sorkin dismissed it in this film.  It’s reprehensible in the current milieu of incessant proselytizing on systemic racism and unconscious bias to ignore the anti-Semitic agenda of the actual trial of the Chicago 7.

As referenced in a Feb. 6, 1970 New York Times report, Abbie used a memorable Yiddish phrase after attacking the judge for lining his pockets with “war-stocks”: “Abbie Hoffman picked up the attack, spicing it with Yiddish, ‘Shande fur de Goyim [Disgrace for the Gentiles],’ he yelled.”  Sorkin’s dereliction to illustrate the conflict between the Jewish Judge as a frontman for the government and the Jewish defendant indicates that the filmmakers deemed it permissible to trample on the underlying Jewish persecution present in the actual history — proving, yet again, in Hollywood, it’s okay to make a movie about racial injustice toward Jews, but only in a Holocaust film.

As appalling as the anti-Semitic nature of the film’s disregard for Jewish American history is, of equal notability is the timing of the film’s release just prior to what some consider to be the most consequential election in U.S. history.  It seems to be an attempt to prejudice the viewer to vote Democrat. But if that is the intent, the filmmakers failed.

Just a few weeks prior to a momentous election, Netflix released a film highlighting the authoritarian rule of government, pertaining especially to the draft. The Chicago 7 were protesting the draft of the Vietnam war at the DNC for LBJ.  Note: it was Democratic President Carter who reinstated the Selective Service Registration Requirement in 1980 through Presidential Proclamation 4771, which is still the law today. Utilizing a fabricated portrayal of history, Sorkin forces the narrative against the Republicans by making it appear as though Nixon provoked the investigation of the Seven. However, those charges belong to LBJ, (as noted by National Review). It was Richard Nixon who campaigned in the 1968 election on a promise to end the draft, which he did as a Republican president.  Maybe that is why the protests in the film were at the Democrats’ convention and not Nixon’s Republican convention. Did Sorkin not include his characters’ famous objectives versus obstacles arguments because that banter would favor the Republicans?

As elucidated by the protagonists, the film’s leitmotiv is an opposition to obliging American men to go to war overseas. Two of these now-famous white men were amongst the many in the 60s and 70s who sidestepped such obligations due to medical reasons: Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Biden was exempt due to asthma and Trump because of bad feet. Biden has been a U.S. senator since 1973 and was vice president for eight years.  One might wonder how many young men and women died in combat in foreign lands while Biden was in office? The current presidential candidate has held power during wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Vietnam, and more, which tragically sent our fellow citizens back in body bags.

Concurrent with the anti-war sentiment of the Chicago 7, President Trump is the first president who hasn’t initiated a war since Jimmy Carter. He has led with an initiative of bringing troops home and vowing to end foreign interventions. He promises to build a military so mighty we never have to use it, with the understanding that if you want peace, it behooves us to be so formidable that no country will dare to mess with the USA.

Implied in “The Trial of The Chicago 7” line “every four years” is that we can vote to effectuate change. However, the previous epochs presented a choice between two establishment-inner-circle political hacks in the pockets of the same corporations, Lyndon B. Johnson and the anti-draft Richard Nixon. In 2020, we are offered the choice of an old establishment guy who is so deeply entrenched in the D.C. ways, the pockets of corporations, and foreign adversarial interests, running against a reality TV star who was outraged at Washington D.C.

Trump detested how the VA hospitals treated veterans during the time in which Biden held office and disdainful of wars that Biden and Obama wouldn’t end. A billionaire, starring in his own successful reality show, possessing seventeen golf courses worldwide, Trump gave up this luxurious lifestyle to be unremittingly ravaged and harassed by the press, become poorer, and be a target for assassination. Biden, a career politician, has intimated his addiction to power and money. Forbes estimates that Biden has a net worth of $9 million, while American Thinker says it’s some $250 million.

One might argue that Trump is not in his right mind because it necessitates an impassioned individual to abandon so many comforts in his billionaire lifestyle to go live in government housing and donate his entire paycheck. Analogously, Abbie Hoffman in Sorkin’s film suffers an impetuous, quixotic temperament, and if he was a successful Reality TV Star today, he might have been our president. They both share the inability to filter their thoughts before directly submitting them to the people. It makes one curious how surreal Abbie’s Twitter might have looked. Abbie’s comedic showcases against the DC failures could be paralleled to Trump’s off-Teleprompter conversations with his massive rallies. Abbie and Trump are idealists fighting the system.

Trump is not a traditional, establishment Republican, except perhaps in his stance on the Second Amendment and Abortion. Nevertheless, the Left despises him. Republicans, conventionally, aren’t interested in Prison Reform, loose spending or pulling out of international arrangements, as Trump has done. Establishment Republicans, like Bush 1 and 2, launched military interventions in foreign lands. Notwithstanding the risk of controversy, upsetting our allies and the Republicans, Trump has shown his antipathy for war repeatedly, calling our soldiers home. The film conveys the same anti-war, anti-D.C. sentiment Trump ran on.

Contrary to Sorkin and the leftists behind the film who might want you to view Trump as the Judge, it appears Trump has more in common with the anti-establishment Abbie Hoffman. It’s difficult to ignore the film’s overture of standing up to power, “the establishment,” AKA the brainwashers. Abbie Hoffman does “stand-up” to a group of people, convincing them that the government controls our thoughts, the government is screwing us, and we as people can change it.

Trump ran because he didn’t like what the government was doing to our country.  He was especially incensed by our vets’ poor healthcare, spending blood and treasure on endless wars, and our inadequate immigration policies. A lifelong Democrat, he had to first learn the tenets of the Republican party and what was now expected of him. Trump is not in line with the establishment paragon of either party, but at his core he is pro-American. He opposes expendable wars, and refrains from putting America’s soldiers in unnecessary combat. He wants our government to prioritize our nation’s interests. Trump loves standing in the spotlight, ranting about how the government is broken, full of corrupt swamp creatures, and politicians on the take, who should be “locked up.”

How could the leftist protagonists in The Trial of the Chicago 7 avoid not aligning with Trump’s anti-war stance? Would Sorkin argue that they would back Biden and his feckless stance on proliferating war after war and accepting money from the biggest mind-controlling corporations on earth?

Biden criticized the president for reaching out to Kim Jung-Un to avoid a conflict. Biden would likely launch an attack on North Korea, since Obama told Trump it was destined. One could easily see Biden giving billions to Iran again. Uniting the Middle East is part of Trump’s plan to stop Iran and disburden the USA from leading the effort to prevent Hassan Rouhani from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Abbie calls the sham against them, where they are fighting the political establishment, a “political trial.”  Trump is also fighting the political establishment, who has no better representation than Joe Biden. Biden claims that Trump “doesn’t share the values of most Americans.” American taxpayers have paid this guy for almost 50 years. He’s been a swamper by making people dependent on government and playing politics.  Biden and Obama’s establishment appears to have spied on Donald Trump before he was elected; history says Abbie Hoffman was a victim of government surveillance as well.  The media is against Trump. Hollywood, including Netflix, is against Trump. Netflix produced an entire series called Space Force to mock Trump’s creation of the first new branch of the military since 1947.

Trump’s and his family’s life have become hell. Unlike his corrupt, establishment counterparts who have profited in government, he has lost friends, millions or possibly billions. How many people will no longer stay at a Trump hotel or play at a Trump golf course?  He’s lost half his customers.  If Biden packs the court, moves low-income housing into suburbs to change the makeup of congressional districts, and abolishes the electoral college, the American people with will no longer have a chance to speak, nevermind actualize, change. If the Democrats want to make race-based laws again and curtail freedom of speech, where do you think Abbie Hoffman would be in today’s world? Perhaps against the Democrats who wield the same tyrannical and anti-Constitutional ideas he fought in the 60s!

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a movie that celebrates the virtues of anti-establishment. Trump is the first president who was not endorsed by any living president. Having done more than any previous president in a single term, it’s not because he’s ineffective.  The list includes border security, Middle East peace, a booming economy (prior to Covid), improved health care for vets, opportunity zones, favored nations on prescription drugs that drastically reduce the price, to name a few. As an outsider who doesn’t care about conventional politics, he did what Americans wanted. The Biden swamp is the system that the Chicago Seven fought.

Abbie, the author of Steal This Book, committed suicide long before he had a chance to see Trump steal his act. They were two peas in a pod, sharing a love for criticizing the broken political system via a stream of consciousness rants, while standing in the spotlight. The Trump-Hoffman rants play the same notes,  fighting for the justice of African Americans’, opportunities enshrined in the American Dream, and bringing back our soldiers. Let’s not forget the Seven were protesting at the Democratic Convention.  The person responsible for the bloody violence of peaceful protestors, who denied their right of free assembly was Richard J. Daley, Chicago’s mayor, a Democrat. His actions were the genesis for the charges against the Seven in what could be considered entrapment.

The Left, Netflix, and Aaron Sorkin fail to see that Trump represents much of the change they say they want… Biden is the old guard who failed to pull us out of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, invaded Libya in the years of his vice presidency and failed to fix the VA care for our Vets, as Trump did in his first term with the Veterans Choice Program. Aaron Sorkin is not just a Shande fur de Goyim, but his film is also a Shande for the Democrats.