The problem with documentaries like #Untruth: The Psychology of Trumpism, besides its name, is that it’s hard to gauge who the audience is. Is it politically engaged people, or are people tuning out politics until election time, or is it a propaganda piece to try and encourage people to act? The answer is a little bit of everything.
Dan Partland’s documentary is part of a series of documentaries for Apple TV. His earlier one was #Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump. I haven’t seen that documentary, but if it’s anything like Untruth, the title may be misleading. While ‘psychology’ is in the title, Partland is less interested in what makes Trumpism tick and more interested in laying out how Trump has led us to where we are.
Early on, psychologist John Gartner points out: “Our generation has really lived through two pandemics. One, of course, is COVID-19, but the other is a psychiatric pandemic.” This is the thesis of Untruth: the pandemic of authoritarianism and how easily the pillars of our systems became eroded.
This is not to say there aren’t psychologists or attempts to explain the Trump supporter mindset. Partland gives some air time to people like former Congressman Joe Walsh and former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramouci. However, the bulk of Untruth explains how Trump is both a literal and existential threat to democracy.
The question is not how misleading the title is so much as whether Partlands’ documentary is any good. The answer is yes and no. For someone like myself, who is politically engaged enough to go beyond online discourse and read articles and books, there’s nothing new for me in Untruth. But I imagine most people might have fully realized the scope of everything.
I remember a co-worker I had who offhandedly said Hillary was worse than Trump. But when I asked how or why, he could not answer. He wasn’t even a Trump supporter. My point is that some people have opinions and have not given them the full breadth of thought that they should. Something as a critic I run into every day.
For those people, Untruth might be an interesting starting point. Partland talks to people like Dr. Steve Hassan, who used his time as an actual cult member of Rev. Sun Myung Moon to write books about cult psychology. Walsh and Hassan are perfect for Untruth because they talk clearly and passionately.
As someone who remembers Walsh’s infamous ‘You lie’ outburst to then-President Obama during his State of the Union, it was jarring to see him again. I had honestly forgotten about him. Walsh brings up the Tea Party. I remember the Tea Party vividly and how I watched in real-time as they moved the GOP even further to the right.
But they seem primarily forgotten because the GOP is now the Tea Party. Partland briefly touches on this with people like former RNC chair Michael Steele, the RNC’s first and last Black chair. Steele is an invaluable resource as someone who is both a Republican and fights tooth and nail against them because they no longer represent the party he joined.
However, Partland’s biggest problem is that Untruth never escapes the gravitational forces of its budget. It feels and moves like a YouTube documentary. Partland and his cameraman Stefanos Kafatos arrange a buffet of talking heads, all of them informative but also trying to boil down complex notions into bite-sized soundbites.
Worse is how, in the beginning, Partland and his editor, Scott Evans, create a montage of images using still animation only to drop it entirely as the documentary goes on. Partland and Evans utilize a lot of media footage culled from the news’s exhaustive and breathless coverage of Trump’s Auhtoranism. The media’s role in the rise of Trump is left unexplored, perhaps because they ran out of time.
One of the problems of the modern age is how fast everything happens. Untruth is recent enough to include Project 2025 but not recent enough to have anything about the Palestinian genocide. It does talk about the Ukrainian genocide because that ties in with the Putin and Russiagate narrative.
It should be pointed out that the world is in such a state that multiple genocides are occurring concurrently. I mention this because I sometimes think people only think there is one. Perhaps they feel, rightfully, that quelling at least one of them would be a victory.
Social media and its effects on us are also explored, as is the notion of news deserts, the thousands of counties nationwide with no local newspaper. Untruth works best when it shows how all these events are connected and how Trump has inflamed them.
Amidst footage of the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump rallies, it’s hard not to get inflamed. However, for me, the documentary’s most effective and chilling part showed Trump trying to deliver his post-Jan. 6 speech. The way he stops makes notes, and visibly outs about having to say these things. The most telling, “I don’t want to say the election’s over. I just wanna say Congress has certified the results.”
Yet, Untruth leaves unsaid, and I think the most depressing aspect of Trumism is that it is a movement founded on the most unserious, shallow, gullible, conniving bunch of fools to ever get appropriate a political party.
Something that the filmmaker Lynne Sachs showcased brilliantly in her short E*pis*to*lary: letter to Jean Vigo. She edited footage from the insurrection together with footage from Jean Vigo’s Zero for Conduct and Lord of the Flies. The five-minute short is an uncomfortable watch as she shows how childlike the rioters were by underlining how little care they had for anyone but themselves.
Partland’s Untruth is a decent documentary made more to reach out to the uninformed voter, pique their curiosity, and get them to look around and realize the precipice we stand on.
Images courtesy of Dark Star Pictures
Have strong thoughts about this piece you need to share? Or maybe there’s something else on your mind you’re wanting to talk about with fellow Fandomentals? Head on over to our Community server to join in the conversation!
