The first political election I really paid attention to was the 2000 Presidential Election. I was 16 at the time, so not old enough to vote, but old enough to start being interested in politics. My read on the election at the time is that neitherAl GorenorGeorge W. Bushwere interesting enough to break away from each other, and as a consequence, we had the recount madness in Florida. But now looking back at that election, it’s clear that we’re still living with its fallout.Billy Corben’s new documentary537 Votesexamines how exactly Miami-Dade County became the epicenter of this political shitshow dating all the way back to theElián Gonzálezcase and the way Republican political operatives were able to essentially steal the election while Democrats assumed the fairness of the courts would prevail. Overall, it’s a lesson in misreading your political opponent, and how good intentions don’t really matter if you’re not focused on winning first.
537 Votesspends its first act recounting how the drama surrounding Elián González, a six-year-old Cuban boy who washed up in Miami half-dead after losing his mother on the treacherous voyage to the mainland, became a flashpoint in local politics. Cuban Americans were wary of Democrats, but enough had voted for Clinton to help give him Florida in previous elections. Al Gore, a decent man who sucks at politics, failed to thread the needle, and the federal government’s raid on González’ home so they could send him back to Cuba soured the community against Gore. This political fumbling was prelude to the notoriously close Election Night less than a year later when it was too close to call and an automatic recount went into effect. Gore, who stupidly had conceded the race earlier that night only to recant his concession, assumed the system would work in his favor, while Republican operatives coalesced in Miami to make sure that Bush would win by a narrow margin.
Corben’s biting documentary works best when it takes a macro-view of opportunistic politics. It’s not a documentary that’s here to reaffirm your faith in America, but to show that the system is easily broken by those who have an interest in breaking it. There were missteps along the way like Gore trusting Miami mayorAlex Penelas(imagine a Democratic Marco Rubio and you’ve got a good measure of how Penelas is presented here) or underestimating local kingmakerArmando Guiterrez, but the Elián story and the Recount story are presented as connected by how Republicans were able to size up the moment and act accordingly both times. The Cuban American community was conservative leaning, but this was a crucial district in an obviously close election, and Republicans had no compunction about doing whatever they could to win, actual votes be damned.
However, there are times when Corben misses bigger issues that would have been nice to address. As one talking head puts it, the election was lost in a lot of places, but it was stolen in Miami. So why did it all come down to one county? What did that say about our country at the time beyond how stale most of its late-night political comedy was? We’re living in the fallout of 2000, but pre-2000 in the movie isn’t defined by much beyond the economic boom of the 1990s, which is nice, but doesn’t say much about the politics of the time and how the slash-and-burn ethos of politicians like Newt Gingrich precipitated the Republican actions in Florida.
There are times when the documentary can be a bit uneven. I think Penelas is made to be too big of a scapegoat while people like Secretary of StateKatherine Harrisand GovernorJeb Bushare pretty much footnotes, but I also like how it clearly explains what happened while casting a light onto underestimated events like the González raid (as a side note, there’s a good documentary to be made aboutJanet Reno’s colossal fuck-ups during her time as Attorney General). There are missteps when Corben leans too heavily on a post-2000 reference (it was very weird to see theDJ Khaled“Congratulations, you played yourself,” meme pop up), but overall it’s a good education even if there are some larger questions it could have explored.
537 Votesis most effective as a warning to its liberal viewers. As one commentator notes, Republicans are very good at casting themselves as both winners and victims, and that’s exactly what happened in 2000. They had “won” the election and were being “victimized” because Miami-Dade County had the audacity to actually make sure votes were counted. The victims in this story aren’t the uncounted Americans; it’s the political party that brought in out-of-town operatives to pretend like they were some oppressed minority. And if you don’t like that, then you’re just a sore loser. It’s a twisted political message, but it was successful, and we all had to live with the fallout. If Democrats think that fabled values like “honesty” and “integrity” will save them in 2020,537 Votesshows there’s an opposition party that’s more than happy to take their lunch.
537 Votes is now available on HBO Max or on HBO On Demand.
