Windsor woman who worked on Michael Moore’s ‘Trumpland’ calls election ‘surreal’

Terri Hardesty never imagined that when she recorded a fake newscast on Donald Trump’s election for filmmaker Michael Moore’s most recent documentary, she was predicting the future.

But then came Trump’s historic upset, making Hardesty’s two-minute broadcast, penned by Moore and shot Oct. 4 for his new film “Trumpland” appear eerily prescient.

In it, Hardesty, 51, of Windsor, talks about Trump’s inauguration, his lack of interest in living in the White House and the rise of Breitbart News, the right-wing outlet that backed the New York businessman throughout his campaign.

“Trumpland” was released in mid-October, three weeks before the election.

“It’s really surreal because a lot of it seemed so ridiculous at the time,” Hardesty said.

Hardesty, a media consultant and former broadcast journalist, worked for Moore on a previous film, “Sicko,” which came out in 2007. As a producer for “Sicko,” she lived in New York City for about eight months during filming, but when she got the call to help out with “Trumpland” in late September, she was surprised.

“One minute you’re sitting there, and the next thing I knew, it was like, ‘Terri, Michael wants to know if you can be in Ohio next week,’?” she said Monday in a phone interview.

Throughout the presidential campaign, Moore was outspoken in his belief that Trump would prevail over Hillary Clinton based on his appeal to disaffected voters throughout the Rust Belt, Moore’s home territory, and what turned out to be a pivotal battleground in the election. His viewpoint was rare among prominent media commentators, and in “Trumpland,” he attempts to explain why Trump’s chances were better than many journalists and polls indicated.

For her part, Hardesty spent three days interviewing Trump supporters in Wilmington, Ohio, a town of about 12,500 situated in the southwestern portion of the state - ironically, in Clinton County. The county’s voters have backed the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 2000, according to Cleveland.com.

This year, Trump won by a greater margin over Clinton in that county than any of the past four GOP candidates won over the Democratic counterpart: 74.4 percent to 21.8 percent.

The film is a recording of a one-man show Moore put together for Wilmington residents, a town chosen for its overwhelming Republican voting majority in a particularly important battleground state, but it also includes the interviews Hardesty conducted and the fake newscast.

One of Hardesty’s first interviews in town was with a man who had a big Trump banner wrapped around his house. He voiced hope that the real estate mogul would be good for job creation.

“And I said, ‘OK,’ and then he said, ‘The other thing I like about him is -’ and then he lifts up his shirt to show me his gun,” Hardesty said. “It was really odd. It was like he was totally open. He didn’t even ask who I was with or why we were there. ... That was kind of a theme I saw throughout the whole town. People were really willing to share their views and their opinions, and they were not paranoid. They were happy to be able to express themselves and talk about it.”

“Trumpland” is available for download on iTunes and Amazon Video.

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. ?