‘A good 50 million Americans are nuts’

His new book,Here Comes Trouble,is in a different vein,pulling together vignettes from his life before he made his name with Roger & Me (1989),his unsparing account of what General Motors’ lay-offs did to his one-time hometown of Flint. Being kicked out of his seminary for asking questions,shaming racist social clubs and getting elected as a teenager to the Board of Education to have revenge on a sadistic teacher were only a foretaste of the trouble Moore has made since.

Moore’s take-downs of the gun lobby (Bowling for Columbine,2002),the Iraq war (Fahrenheit 9/11,2004) and drug companies (Sicko,2007) have made him as demonised by the right in America as he is lionised by the left. Yet not a day goes by in Traverse City,he says,without a Republican giving him a handshake or a hug. “They have had,I guess,the benefit of getting to know me as a human being. We’re all Americans. We are all in the same boat.”

Was that the point of the book,I ask,to present a more nuanced figure? He surprises me by saying his bigger motivation was to write “something that aspired to what the nuns tried to teach us,which was literature”.

Critics have used his success to challenge his authenticity. The Washington Times,for example,has called him a hypocritical “jet-setting millionaire”,“a fraud” brought up in a “bourgeois” suburb and “a traitor”,driven by “hatred of America”.

“This attack is never made by anyone from the working class,if you notice,” Moore responds. “Obviously I do well now… Not George Clooney well. But,let me tell you,when you’re from the working class,you want to get out of the working class,” he says. Back home,“I never get anything but ‘Way to go,Mike.”

Moore says he plans a second memoir but is also working on new films and another project — “movie,book,internet,stage show,Ice Capades,could be anything” — that “will address the political situation in the country”. He won’t disclose more.

Ten years ago,on the morning the Twin Towers fell,HarperCollins was shipping 50,000 copies of Stupid White Men to shops. The publisher urged Moore to tone down its critique of the “thief-in-chief”,George W Bush. He refused,and it went on to become 2002’s biggest-selling non-fiction book but time has not mellowed Moore’s view of the former president. “Bush’s presidency is revisionism-proof,” he argues. “We’re going to be recovering from it for the rest of our lives.” I ask whether he feels disillusioned with Bush’s successor. “I was overcome with emotion,voting for [Barack Obama on that day,” he says. “I think he’s a person of good heart and he means well,but…” There is a long pause” “I thought he’d come in swinging… come in like Franklin Roosevelt… What an opportunity to go down as a great president – squandered.” He looks pained.

I ask Moore whether he thinks Obama will be re-elected. “It depends who’s running against him,” he replies. “You have a Republican group of candidates that are certifiably insane. They think the country is as crazy as they are. It’s not. Granted,I think a good 50m people are probably certifiably nuts too but this is a big country. There’s over 200m voters. We can weather 50m idiots.”

Here Comes Trouble opens with a long quote from Glenn Beck,whose mix of polemical entertainment and political rabble-rousing on the right has echoes of what Moore has done from the left. “I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore,” it begins,and if it was meant as a joke,it is a disturbing one” “I feel kind of sorry for him,” Moore says. “I don’t think he’s well.”

Moore argues that next year’s US election could feature as many as four candidates —Obama,a mainstream Republican,a Tea Party representative and a prominent “leftie” standing for Democrats frustrated with the president. Are you announcing your candidacy? I ask,taken aback,and he quickly denies it.

Moore says he leads “a very conservative life” with the wife he met 30 years ago,going to Mass on Sundays. He complains that many on the left have lost their sense of humour,and tells conservatives that,if they would turn off talk radio and watch his films,“you may still disagree with me politically but you’ll know that I love this country and I have a heart,and you’ll laugh a little because they’re funny too.”

© 2011 The Financial Times Limited