Political Documentaries That Tell Us How We Got Here.

Boogie Man: The Lee Altwater Story (2008)

This is a prescient and illuminating documentary where actors connected to our present era made their first marks. Roger Stone, the Bush family, Manafort.

Lee Atwater was a precocious political operative who played a large role in winning campaigns for Republican candidates in the 80s and 90s, who died young, at the age of 40, from a brain tumor. Before his death, he expressed regret for his work of conning, tricking and lying to political opponents and voters alike. Confined to a wheelchair and unrecognizable, he wrote redemption letters to his opponents.

I first watched it after finding it randomly on a cable channel not knowing who Altwater was. The story of redemption at the end stayed with me all these years. His name came up recently in discussions connected to this administration.

Recently, I watched it again, and was shocked to see how both his tactics and former associates still dominate right-wing politics