In sports and politics, Americans want a fair playing field

Americans love sports far more than they do politics There s a good line attributed to linguist and activist Noam Chomsky that if Americans loved politics as much as they love sports there would be a revolution the next morning I didn t put that in quotation marks because Chomsky apparently never noted it But it neatly sums up his thoughts about the bread and circuses aspect of sports and how various people use a lot of intelligence citing history and statistics when they talk about sports but defer too much to so-called experts when it comes to politics This past weekend I watched a college football competition in which my crew lost It was a tight defensive championship during which all the calls on the field were clearly correct even the ones that didn t serve the gang I was rooting for Every review of the plays in question revealed the truth of the matter and the agents adhered to those truths and were not swayed by the often childish behavior of both head coaches on the sidelines This American ideal of fairness and the importance of following rules that I grew up with and was taught to admire by my teachers in our church and by the heritage doesn t apply to the man-child occupying the White House or his sheep-pen of enablers in Congress It goes without saying but it requirements to be mentioned that being fair and faithful to rules is not at all the Trumpian way This American ideal of fairness and the importance of following rules that I grew up with and was taught to admire by my teachers in our church and by the tradition doesn t apply to the man-child occupying the White House or his sheep-pen of enablers in Congress The worst of them think Speaker of the House Mike Johnson R-La or White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt smile broadly as they lynch the truth and denigrate the working press on the daily My making a sports-related argument about President Donald Trump s lifelong determination to win by cheating is not out of bounds After all he cheats at golf showing zero respect to the very battle that holds the ideal of personal honesty highest of all If there were any justice in the world a guy who cheats at golf should not be able to own golf courses In his confirmation testimony to the Senate John Roberts made the situation for becoming chief justice of the Supreme Court by using a sports metaphor Calculatedly he touched on American heartstrings by likening his role to an umpire who calls balls and strikes and has no agenda Related America s heartbreaking divorce from Canada What a nasty slider that was delivered in a hokey aw-shucks manner by a Federalist Society approved conservative ideologue Twenty-two Democratic senators simultaneously whiffed on that pitch What I m saying about my alma mater losing that football event connects with what is happening to our country My gang lost and the calls on the field were all correct There was nothing I could grouse about and I absolutely admired a good event played For the vast majority of Americans that remains our standard adhering to norms and rules that ensure fairness and relying on people with experience to make the calls with honesty and intelligence on a football field a baseball diamond or in any field of endeavor where all citizens have a right to the facts on the ground from populace servants working on the foreign intelligence that protects us or collecting accurate economic information that helps our businesses make good decisions or say doing the weather modeling that allows populations at threat to be warned in time to head for the hills or to at least take cover The man infamous for serial infidelity for a conviction for sexual assault for two impeachments for major fines for operating a bogus university and a phony charity for attempting to overturn an referendum for cheating his way to felony convictions for fraudulent business activity and I ll add for not living up at all to his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution doesn t want any of us to have that crucial information Like any wannabe dictator he reported the free press is the enemy of the people when of unit his own dishonesty and general ill-will toward others is the enemy Want more sharp takes on politics Sign up for our free newsletter Standing Room Only written by Amanda Marcotte now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts His latest toddler-like meltdown has been about an anti-tariff television commercial that uses an economic speech given in in which President Ronald Reagan speaks about the damage tariffs do to the market and to Americans in general The ad commissioned by Ontario s premier Doug Ford and shown during the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays prompted Trump to sulk and call off all business talks with Canada and then a day later still sulking threaten an additional tariff on all goods from our northern neighbor Trump and his right-wing propagandist echo-chamber decried the ad claiming that it cherry-picked lines from Reagan s radio broadcast misrepresenting what he mentioned The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Institute announced much the same about the ad and noted that it was considering legal action But a multitude of outlets such as this one presented the speech with the lines used in the ad in boldface so anyone could see there was no misrepresentation of Reagan s general feelings about agreement and tariffs In his talk about using tariffs temporarily against Japan Reagan emphasized invoking the scarring hardships of the Great Depression that he didn t want the American people to have to deal with the protectionist law that destroys prosperity In the speech Reagan even mentioned speaking to Canadian leaders about the importance of free and fair transaction As much as I love Los Angeles and my friends who live there if the Blue Jays should win the World Series that would be certain karmic justice after Canadians have had to deal with Trump s ceaseless blather about annexing Canada as the st state while threatening punishing tariffs in one of his mob-style shakedowns Nice country you ve got here It would be a shame if something should happen to it We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in contemporary times to endorsement Salon s progressive journalism Am I anti-American to say that No just a human being who believes in rules and fairness in general Inexplicably Major League Baseball still doesn t have a salary cap and according to the Sporting News the L A Dodgers payroll at million is the highest in baseball That s nearly million more than the also-bloated payroll of the Toronto Blue Jays Frankly it s hard to root for either gang given their financial advantages over preponderance hometown teams but a win by Toronto would as my wife pointed out at least give slight credibility to our vainglorious World Series A lifelong cheater on golf on wives and everything in between Trump s presence in the White House permits his followers to think and behave as badly as he does to lie and otherwise be as boorish and rapacious as he is every day or to at least take pleasure in seeing him do it because it upsets the libs It definitely angers all Americans not in the Trump cult The MAGA Republican party has become a sordid den of liars and cheats curtailing voting rights by gerrymandering states to ensure more Republicans in the House and intimidating voters like by threatening to send balloting monitors from Trump s toady-filled Department of Justice to New Jersey and California So yeah I m gonna root for the crew that sells the poutine hot dog this year Hey as John Roberts claimed way back when and somehow with a straight face all I m doing is calling balls and strikes here Read more about this topic Trump s bulldozer is aimed at more than the White House Mike Johnson exploits the shutdown to hide the Epstein files Barack Obama tries to rally Americans to defend their democracy The post In sports and politics Americans want a fair playing field appeared first on Salon com