As the midterms draw near amid continuing false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, how did American democracy reach this point? Veteran filmmaker Michael Kirk joins host Raney Aronson-Rath, FRONTLINE’s editor-in-chief and executive producer, for a special live recording of The FRONTLINE Dispatch to discuss what FRONTLINE’s season premiere, Lies, Politics and Democracy, reveals.   

The two-hour documentary special, structured as a countdown to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol,  identifies critical decisions that have profoundly changed and challenged America over the past seven years, leading to what journalist  Tim Alberta says in the film is  an “existential threat” to American democracy. 

Among those critical decisions, Kirk says, was a series of “inflection points” in which Republican leaders embraced the rhetoric of Donald Trump even as warning signs mounted. 

"This was the leadership agreeing to be silent,” Kirk says, “agreeing to think they were gonna manipulate him and then being manipulated themselves."

Lies, Politics and Democracy is now streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS Video App and FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel.


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