The Internet has fractured how we get our information. When Moore made “Bowling for Columbine,” in 2002, he put forth essential arguments about the gun debate, and the historical culture of American violence, that people still reference. The movie itself felt like a loaded weapon. (A number of viewers hated his ambush of Charlton Heston, but in that moment I felt that Moore revealed the hypocrisy of gun advocates.) The film grossed $21 million, but even that solid sum barely measured how much it became part of the conversation. Today, by contrast, the conversation about guns is more or less everywhere, rippling through comment boards and news shows and cell phones and, yes, documentaries, some of which have been superb (like 2016’s incisive portrait of the NRA, “Under the Gun”) even as they’ve remained mostly off the radar. It’s much harder for one movie to break through and become a giant billboard of issues the way that “Bowling for Columbine” did.

Moore’s audience has aged out. A generation of liberal viewers grew up with Michael Moore, but it may well be that they no longer go out to the movies. At least, not in the way they once did. He’s like an aging rock star putting out albums that simply don’t mean as much to those who were, and are, his core fans. But what about the next generation? If anything, they’re even more of Moore’s ilk: ardent, progressive, dogmatic in their passion. There’s just one problem: The under-40 generation, raised by technology, has demonstrated that it feels almost no desire to act out its progressive impulses by going to the movies. That’s what their parents did. Remember “Citizenfour,” the Laura Poitras documentary about Edward Snowden? It became a mythical media touchstone. And guess what? Hardly anyone saw it.

In the Trump era, people are addicted to the news, but they’re also sick of it. They don’t want to go out to a movie and rehash the Trump presidency they’re already living on a nightly basis on MSNBC. Simple as that. I mean, seriously, who hasn’t felt the burnout? Then, of course, there’s a highly related phenomenon, known as…