Rigged 2016 (2016) is a documentary directed by Bobby Sheehan, Jeremy Warner and Chris Schmutz (Dead Abe Lincoln) about the 2016 United States presidential election that featured two of the most divisive figures in American politics – Democrat Hillary Clinton, a career politician accused of selling government favors (Marc Rich) and lying to the public, and Republican Donald Trump, a ruthless businessman and showman – whose parties conspired to keep Libertarian Gary Johnson, the only third party candidate to be listed in all 50 state ballots, and D.C., out of the presidential debates and thus marginalized, effectively preventing his policy proposals from reaching the American public.

Life Lesson:

In a country where 307,000 veterans died waiting for their government provided healthcare, and where during the height of the Veterans Affairs scandal the VA gave themselves $142 million in bonuses; where the residents of Flint Michigan were subjected to lead-poisoned water; where multiple health insurance companies that were funded by tax payers have failed, raising insurance premiums for people already being taxed for healthcare; where mass incarceration and the police state have devastated whole communities; where poor kids are trapped in failing schools and put in the school to prison pipeline; where political donors like Trump get special tax loopholes from bought politicians like Clinton, which hurts honest businesses, competition, consumers, the economy and the poor – the only candidate offering solutions to these problems, Gary Johnson, was not allowed to participate in the presidential debates. The two-party system harms the U.S. republic and the ability of the people to elect honest leaders. It is maintained by a rigged process. But in a 3 person race, a third party candidate only needs 35% of the vote, a little over 1/3, to win the presidency.

Movie Scene:

Glenn Beck: “We’re fighting over the lesser of two evils because that’s what the parties have done to us.”

Ashley Green: “When you’re worried about poisoned water, couple that with all the terrorist attacks and homicides within each other in our own communities, it makes you wonder, are we really one of the most developed countries in the world? Do we really have a government that is fighting to move us forward?”

Bill Stifford: “What happened to our Democracy? What happened to my sacrifice as a veteran? […] For those guys to lay down their lives and to see what happened in Philadelphia [DNC convention], to our democratic process, it just really angers me. I thought we were going to have a better future, but here we are sending these kids over to Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Syria, and they’re not fighting for the freedom of the Iraqi democracy or Syrian people, they’re fighting for the oil companies.”