The video that I watched was less of a documentary and more so an interview with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Louis Farrakhan has been known for making controversial statements on racial, political, and social issues since the 50's. His preachings often describe white people as symbols of the devil, and he has condemned Jewish people, LGBTQ+ people, and Barack Obama on numerous occasions. In this interview, Louis Farrakhan focuses more on the political side of things. He speaks on a number of topics from conflicts with the Middle East, to abortion, to political corruption in the 2016 presidential race. Overall, I felt the video itself was a piece propaganda, however it had less to do, in my opinion, with Louis Farrakhan and more to do with the interviewer himself, Alex Jones. Before seeing this video I had never heard of Alex Jones, or his project "Info Wars", of which this interview was a part of. Jones rarely asked questions of Louis Farrakhan. Instead, he would break off on tangents and voice his opinion on a topic and then Farrakhan if he felt the same. Each time, Farrakhan would, unsurprisingly, agree. At the beginning of the interview, Jones says he is interested in "investigating" Farrakhan and getting a chance to really pick his brain, but from the first discussion, dealing with Donald Trump, it becomes clear that Jones is only interested in pushing his ideas further into the spotlight. In terms of what Louis Farrakhan had to say, he certainly did have some interesting views on the current state of our country. Farrakhan, like many Americans, believes the money we have poured into politicians has made them corrupt. He then goes on to make some interesting points about how deep this corruption runs and what it can lead to. However, he then strays a little too far from a reasonable arguments by comparing Donald Trump to Saddam Hussein, in a positive way. He believes Donald Trump is worthy of support because he is not a conventional politician, and therefore not corrupt in the same ways, making him an outsider, just as he claims Saddam Hussein was. I fully understand that Farrakhan has a right to support whatever politician he chooses, but comparing that politician to Saddam Hussein in a favorable way raises some concerns. Louis Farrakhan also shares a number of outlandish stories throughout the interview that I personally do not believe are true. He tells a tale about how his mother tried to abort him three times and how she was unsuccessful. The story almost then becomes a symbol of Farrakhan's literal overcoming and defeat of abortion. It becomes a piece of anti-choice propaganda. This sort of larger than life image he gives himself, immune to all things he deems evil in the world, reminds me almost of the story of Romulus and Remus perpetuated by the Roman people. It also reminds me of certain demagogues in current times from North Korea. Overall, I think the entire interview didn't really leave me with any questions, it just left me wondering where the justification was behind any of the ideas Farrakhan kept pushing out. It's very interesting to see how demagogues think and function, but it can also be incredibly frustrating.
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