I have been saying for some time that there seemed to be little to no real substantive difference between the political talk shows that air on Sunday mornings, and the football pregame shows that come on right after them. Both discuss what two sides have to do to win, both blast the shortcomings of opposing sides when they are showing weaknesses that will compromise their chances of winning, and both fixate on what each views as the bigger picture as to who is going to come out on top in "the Big One."
For football, of course, that talk focuses on the Super Bowl. There will be predictions before the season starts and, really, usually right after one Super Bowl ends. It picks up as the season goes along, and the weaker are eliminated, while the stronger candidates for the championship emerge. That noise grows louder and louder, until it is playoff time. Then, it becomes a roar, and that is all that the sports pundits seem capable of focusing on.
For politics, the talk focuses on the national elections generally. and on the presidential elections in particular. There will be predictions before the election season starts or is in full swing and, really, right after one presidential election ends. It picks up as the election season (which lasts years nowadays) moves along, and the weaker are eliminated, while the stronger candidates emerge. The noise grows louder and louder as the candidates grow fewer, until the race is restricted to the two candidates for the two major party nominees. Then, it becomes a roar, and that is all that the political pundits seem capable of focusing on.
And should it really be all that surprising, then, that both are dominated by obscene amounts of money that have made millions of Americans feel disgusted to the point of tuning out?
In the NFL, those millions of dollars feel particularly offensive when the commissioner, who makes a ton of money each year, handles problems by ignoring them, sweeping them under the rug, and then doing damage control once they have reached a level where things have completely spiraled out of control. The players, who often exhibit bizarre, near criminal behavior, with strange incidents that are also often swept under the rug due to their clout, themselves are too often spoiled athletes rightly criticized for being completely out of touch with reality, who feel that they should be paid even more millions for their jobs. Many of them are pumped up with artificial performance enhancers, which amounts to cheating, and the league, predictably, has put a band-aid on this, rather than tackling the problem head on. In the meantime, young people begin to get the message that to compete, they have to follow the lead and inject performance enhancers to reach another level of viability, if they hope to land a future in the league. Through it all, the sponsors pour millions of dollars to make sure that their voice is heard.
In politics, many of the political candidates make millions each year, and handle many problems by ignoring them, sweeping them under the rug, and then doing damage control once they have reached the level where things have spiraled completely out of control. The players in big politics, who often exhibit bizarre, near criminal behavior, with strange incidents that are also often swept under the rug due to their clout, themselves are spoiled and rightly criticized for being completely out of touch with reality, as they continually block pay increases for everyone else while voting lofty pay raises for themselves. Many of them have pumped millions into their own bank accounts through shady, backroom deals, which amounts to corruption, and the political system, predictably, has put a band-aid on this, rather than tackling the problem head on. In the meantime, young people begin to get the message that to compete, they have to follow the lead and engage in similar shady deals to reach another level of viability, if they hope to land a future in politics. Through it all, the sponsors pour millions of dollars to make sure that their voice is heard.
Inevitably, in both cases, the so-called experts ignore or minimize some of the darker secrets. Football pundits conveniently ignore the fact that one multiple Super Bowl winning quarterback is a rapist, or that his back-up killed dogs for entertainment, or that many players have similarly shady episodes of domestic violence or possession of hard drugs and/or heavy weaponry. Political pundits conveniently ignore that prominent politicians have skeletons in their closets with evidence of corruption, numerous strange episodes that illustrated their egotism. We had people like Packwood and Delay, who committed despicable acts, unforgivable acts. Of course, as soon as they were caught, other Congressmen acted shocked - Shocked! - that such pathetic individuals could be amongst them, even though there is plenty of evidence that many, many active Congressmen have accepted money from special interests that have swayed their votes and/or political opinions.
Any wonder why millions of Americans are disgusted by both the NFL and national politics?
Yet, both still dominate our Sundays in the fall, and both continue to generate all sorts of attention still. I used to be a bigger fan of both when at a younger, more idealistic frame of mind, but no longer. I follow both still, but no longer make a point of watching games every Sunday, or of following every live debate. It is nice when my teams win a championship, or when candidates that I find less disgusting than others win elections, but it is not as crucial as it once seemed, since I inevitably begin to search for that point when they reveal how disappointing they will be, and how far short of often lofty expectations they will fall.
Perhaps part of the problem is that both football and politics seem to try making a point of relating to something else: war. Both use war terminology. In football, you have "blitzes" and "touchdowns" and "strikes" and "offensive weapons" led by a "general" who "leads his troops" in the field. In politics, candidates and parties go to their "war rooms" for strategy, gathering funds for their "war chest" and then they "strike" against opponents in debates, and attack opponents during speeches and mudslinging campaigns. At the end, the winner and losers will usually come to term (though not always) and the loser, who will have "put up a good fight" will congratulate the winner, and promise to work with them in a transition of power, if that applies.
Why Americans should feel comfortable with so many aspects of their society being systematically related to war is a mystery to me. Always has been, and always will be, I guess. It just seems very unhealthy, but what can be done to stem this flow, when so many Americans seem to want to make such comparisons? After all, if the last few decades have shown anything, it is that Americans seem addicted to war every bit as much as they are addicted to oil. And every bit as much as they are addicted to politics, however divisive it may be, and addicted to sports, as well. Especially football.
But war is not a game, and neither is politics. Football is a game, but the NFL, officially still a non-profit organization that uses this status to get away with not paying taxes, is not run like this is a game. It is a big business, with literally billions upon billions of dollars involved, from advertisement to merchandise to television packages to ticketing to enormous, costly stadiums to expensive vendors to fantasy football to all of those sports talk shows that give fans what they want, apparently.
Yet, war is appropriate on one level, because in war, the only thing for the participants that matters is the end result. It does not matter how much you destroy or how many people's lives you end or disrupt, so long s you meet that ultimate objective. It is the most extreme example of single-mindedness, of tunnel vision. And that is what politics is all about in this day and age. Sure, it also seems to apply for sports, perhaps especially the NFL, where no matter what the controversy, all that matters is the end result, winning the game.
In politics, too, all that matters is who wins, and that is why the pundits fixate on who came out on top in this past Democratic debate, or the Republican debates, and every debate. When politics should really be about which candidate is best qualified to lead the country and tackle the countless problems facing it, and perhaps on how was more honest and impressive, the focus instead is on who "won." The same can be said for generating more funds, because this is always supposed to be one of the major elements of winning. The one who obtains the most funds for their campaign is most likely the winner. But when corporations and wealthy private donors are the ones that candidates then have to cater to, who do you think they will serve first, the American people, or those special interests of big money, especially when they themselves can get a piece of that money pie?
I think that the problem then of focusing on winning, winning, winning all of the time speaks of itself, because it speaks not at all about real, everyday life for average Americans today. But it speaks volumes of those privileged few for whom politics truly is a game, from the candidates and sponsors, to the political pundits who seem to control the debate so effortlessly.
Here is a powerful quote, with the link to a great article below it:
"The media elites are fixated on a single question only: Who won? The American media’s tendency to cover politics like a sporting event dates back decades, of course, but it seems to grow more entrenched and absurd with each passing election. Thus the presidential election is covered like a horse race, presidential debates like boxing matches. Who landed the best punches? Who avoided them? Hence most news stories after Tuesday night’s debate carried headlines along the lines of “Hillary Triumphs After Attacking Sanders’s Gun Record.”
What actual voters think about Tuesday’s debate, however, might be quite different. Michael Tomasky, the political columnist at the Daily Beast, seems to be the only mainstream commentator who broke from the herd to make this point. Citing the results of two separate focus groups whose opinions had not been influenced by the media’s post-mortem declarations, Tomasky wrote, “There’s reason to believe that people watching at home didn’t share the media’s overwhelming verdict” that “Clinton crushed it.” On the contrary, both focus groups thought Sanders had won."
- By Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation
Bernie Sanders Has a Secret Weapon, and the Media Elites Just Don’t Get It By Mark Hertsgaard, October 14, 2015:
No comments:
Post a Comment