Educational Media Reviews Online

Battleground is a snapshot of political polarization in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley through its contrasting coverage of Donald Trump supporting attorney and tea party leader, Tom Carroll, and activist and Allentown pastor, Greg Edwards. The film is an effective visit to the Pennsylvanian edition of the politics of race and class division in the United States. It follows Bernie Sanders endorsed Edwards in his unsuccessful 2018 run for Congress, within a district that in U.S. Presidential elections has favored Barrack Obama twice and then flipped to support Donald Trump. Battleground is strongest in its visual contrast of white voters and people of color who inhabit adjacent political geography and less so the geographies of shared experience or philosophy. The narrative structure here, and demeanor of Carroll and Edwards, suggests there is more in common between red state and blue state Americans than one may think, including mutual mistrust for mainstream political candidates backed by corporate superPAC donations. The gloss of that possible affinity is not explored much beyond light suggestions that greater unity might be achievable. Besides some genuinely expressed voter testimonials, we do not walk away from Battleground with clarity why these voters hold the positions they do or why they shift their support for right vs. left leaning candidates. While not explicitly investigated, an intriguing undertone within the film gives a portrait of retail identity politics that at times appears to be a fight over conflicting romanticisms of industrial capitalism and its descendants, and no lack of voter and candidate disaffection with the wider conditions of the political process in which all participate.

Joseph P. Kennedy once remarked that the campaign to get his son elected to the U.S. Congress in mid-twentieth century Massachusetts would sell Jack Kennedy to voters like soapflakes. A strong element in Battleground is its picture in the Pennsylvanian context of passionate appeal, but also the periodic hollowness of political discourse and its competitive rituals. The film does not set out to be a primer on the legwork of campaign staff nor an analysis of how each campaign is managed. It is a valuable record of two opposing and charismatic political activists. As pitch people for their contrasting brands of political future, and a likeability not dissimilar from the role of pitch persons in a commercial advertising campaign, this may fit well with the prevailing emphasis here on elections as horseraces, and candidates as the products voters are looking to buy. Battleground will be of interest to those studying U.S. Congressional electoral politics in the age of Trumpism, especially Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania politics. It is a timely campaign themed documentary which leads with its emphasis on sketches of the passions of its activists, and less so with public policy considerations or deconstruction of the closer tactical operations necessary to build a campaign. Recommended with reservations.

Published and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Anyone can use these reviews, so long as they comply with the terms of the license.