Superbowl, Academy awards, election debate

I’ve missed all three: I didn’t watch the Superbowl, the Academy awards or last night’s Republican debate. I suppose this makes me downright anti-American, but I’ve got what I regard as good reasons to skip all three.

The Superbowl is the ultimate American sports event. It features sudden rushes of activity and physical collisions so violent that they are maiming and killing the participants at a terrifying rate. I’ve always wondered how the Romans found gladiatorial contests appealing. I know now. It is simply inhumane to continue to play this sport as it is played today. A parent who would encourage a kid to play tackle football is a child abuser.

The Academy awards are easy to skip. They were always boring. The failure this year to nominate any black people makes them more so. Chris Rock, whose monologue I read, did little to convince me this is anything but gross and inexcusable prejudice by people who know better. Hollywood has often been a trailblazer when it comes to responding to prejudice. How could it allow itself to sink to symbolizing it?

I’m sure last night’s Republican presidential debate was more entertaining than the Academy awards. But I’ve had enough, not only of Trump’s vulgarity but also of Cruz and Rubio’s attempts to match him.

That said, Trump represents an important slice of the American public, in particular blue collar whites who have benefitted little from the extraordinary economic recovery of the last seven years, topped off last month with almost 250,000 new jobs created. But unfortunately he has chosen to appeal to them with barely disguised racism and grossness, from within a political party that has blocked many attempts to level the playing field and redistribute some of the benefits of the expansion in their direction.

I’d like to see the end of two great American traditions. The Academy awards are the most likely to go first. They have lost a large part of their audience because they are boring and irrelevant. Unfortunately football is still thriving, but young people are increasingly turning to soccer. I hope that trend continues, with the long-term consequence of removing football from its exalted place as the leading American professional sport.

As for the Republican debate, it suggests the party is imploding. It may well nominate Trump, who as a major party candidate is more or less guaranteed one-third, maybe even 40%, of the vote. But he is a loser with all the voters who are counting for more these days in getting over 50%: independents, women, blacks, Hispanics, gays and lesbians. Most of my Republican friends will prefer to vote for Clinton, but of course that over-intellectualized elite counts for little.

It is also possible the Stop Trump movement will succeed and nominate someone like Senators Cruz or Rubio, or Governor Kasich. But in doing so it will lose Trump’s appeal to white blue collars, who are likely to stay home in droves. In any event, it looks as if the economy will be in good shape for November. If anything, its momentum is on the rise, which is the single most important factor in determining US election outcomes.

This is Hillary Clinton’s election to lose. She might do that. The Benghazi issue is fading, not least because of her own performance in Congressional testimony. There simply is no there there. But the question of her unclassified, private email server is still bubbling. Most Democrats don’t seem to care, but she could be indicted. Even if that doesn’t happen, the poor judgment she showed in following a precedent Republican Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condi Rice had set will weaken her with some independents.

Foreign policy will be an issue in this election, even if not a primary one. The threat of Islamic extremism, Russia’s misbehavior in Ukraine and Syria, the Chinese economic and military challenge, and US support for its European and Middle Eastern allies (especially Israel) will all figure, one way or another. The Republicans will bash President Obama’s two big (and popular) recent achievements: the Paris climate change agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. They will have a harder time with Trans-Pacific Partnership trade trade agreement, which Clinton opposes but the Republican establishment supports.

What won’t matter in the election or in the world are the Academy awards and the Superbowl. Nor in the end will Trump. He’ll either be nominated and lose or be edged out somehow and some other Republican will have to figure out how to make Clinton lose, which is unlikely but no impossible.