I wasn’t going to mix my football watching with my science-commentary articles, but sometimes it just falls into your lap. I am watching the LA Rams – San Francisco 49ers on the Fox 11 network. Then what should suddenly appear, but an ad by Sean Hannity that Fox has the News that You Can Trust. It could have been Tucker Carlson, or Laura Ingraham as well. First off, to avoid suits, Fox itself calls the three opinion makers, not news people.
But the main point is, that the two teams are first California teams, and then from California’s two liberal areas, and millions of their fans are watching. Los Angeles could be typed for its Jewish areas, its Black areas, its Hispanic-American areas, Hollywood Blvd., its liberal TV and motion picture liberals and businesses. San Francisco is recently known for gay pride, but is also the home district to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Vice President Kamala Harris from Oakland and now California’s Senator having been our Attorney General. The other California Senator is long-time liberal Diane Feinstein.
California’s 53 House Representatives have been 45 Democrats and 7 Republicans, with one vacant seat. Republicans won back three seats from the midterm, so there are now 42 Democrats, 10 Republicans, and 1 seat still not called. Two of the lost seats were in Orange County.
So, it must have generated a lot of laughs for Hannity to come on our Los Angeles and San Francisco networks to claim that they were the only source of news that you can trust. Some absurdities have to be memorialized, as I am here doing.
By the way, were I Donald Trump (perish the thought) I would indeed be angry that Fox had not offered me a lifelong TV show in Prime Time at an outrageous salary, since I had let Tucker and Sean name the policies that I would follow, to please the Murdoch Family. Actually, were I really Trump, I would daily visit a psychiatrist to learn how to tell the truth, respect scientists, and have some empathy for people who are suffering or dying.
To show the Democratic leanings of California, Trump barely got a third of the Presidential vote, Biden beating him by 63.5% to 34.3%. Biden beat Trump here by 5.1 million votes, about 11 million to 6 million, which were part of the 7 million vote excess which Biden beat Trump by nationally. Of course, all other Democrats contributed to the 80 million Democratic total. California gives Biden 55 electoral votes.
Back to the football teams, in Los Angeles County, Biden beat Trump by 71% to 27%.
Shoot. Rams lost 23 to 20.
The recent involvement of politics with football runs deep. Starting with Colin Kaepernick’s silent protest of racial discrimination by kneeling, Trump, VP Pence, and presumably Fox News abhorred the action, although 70% of NFL players are black, and 81% of NBA players are. In 2017, 13 Fox News employees sued the network for racial discrimination.
The Hannity Fox News Commercial for fans of two of California’s NFL teams was really offensive and embarrassing for Fox today, in front of an audience who knows better.
