With the barrage of numbers coming at you during the coverage of the Super Tuesday primaries, one might be tempted to place a bet with one of the many sportsbooks you see advertising during sporting events. I waited to see Kevin Hart in a bathrobe and Ryan Fitzpatrick showing off his chest hairs, handicapping the races. It is hard to take the exit poll interviews, the talking heads, and worry warts seriously when they neglect to say one of the candidates may be a convicted felon before November. The normalization of Donald Trump, despite having instigated an insurrection—adjudicated as a rapist, cheating on his taxes(repeatedly), and so many counts and indictments, one needs a scorecard to keep up is mind-bending. At any other time in the country’s history, any of the previously mentioned incidents would ruin a campaign, and the candidate would be run out of politics-town on a rail.
It is particularly disheartening, as a black man, to see CNN contributor Van Jones dismiss freedom as an ancillary issue because steak and potatoes are higher than last year. I am the first to admit that I wince with many other Americans when the seemingly never-ending ticker tape of higher prices is spit out of the grocery store cash register. At the same time, I am smart enough to realize that stores and businesses are gouging the consumer. Early after coming out of the pandemic, corporate CEOs started to devise strategies to gouge the public and place blame on the government.
Instead of stabling the tired old nag of presidential politics, the press would race it in the Discontent Stakes because that feeds the corporate beast. As former CBS Chief Les Moonves said about Trump, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” he said of the 2016 presidential race. Later, speaking in the interview, “Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? … The money’s rolling in, and this is fun,” he said. What is supposed to be the watchful eye of American democracy—the press, has become a ritual of non-sensical babble meant to keep graphic designers busy. The talking heads like to talk about the collective amnesia of voters who praise the Trump presidency, while the serious journalists on the panels smile and nod in agreement but never refresh the viewer’s memory.
The networks spent countless hours examining and broadcasting alleged and salacious details of Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis’ sex life. A bevy of lawyers and legal analysts did everything but tell us what size panty DA Willis wears and if they are tagged Monday thru Friday. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Trump is being accused of trying to subvert an American election using threats, phony electors, and his cohorts—on video—tampering with voting machines. Of course, it brings in more eyes to screens, and I guess it is a lot more “fun” to enter the when Fani and Nathan did the deed sweepstakes. So, while the networks tried to convince their viewers—that although President Biden won 15 primaries handily, a loss in American Samoa was reason to panic. California did nominate a former baseball player[Republican Steve Garvey] to run against Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff in November for the Senate seat vacated by the death of longtime Senator Diane Feinstein. I suppose Garvey would be a favorite of former football coach Tommy Tuberville; it would give him and Donald Trump a third to have “locker room talk.”
Vote Against Guns