• aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    A thing that struck me today is like…there was an article talking about how the speaker of the house didn’t like the Superbowl pick. And it’s like, who let these fucking political dorks so far out of their lane?!

    Like did Newt Gingrich like the act at the 1996 Superbowl? I don’t know, and I don’t give a fuck. When did everyone start to give a fuck about these stupid asshole’s opinions on entertainment?

    Go piss up a tree you dumb fucks. Oh, and btw, do your fucking jobs. The government is shut and you’re busy talking about your fucking music preferences. Nobody cares.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Part of the issue is that pro-sports is heavily integrated into American politics. They’re a major font of propaganda for the US government, both domestically and internationally. Olympic Athletes of all stripes are regularly recruited to express American jingoism on an international stage. Military recruiters love to camp out at football games and happily sponsor helicopter landings, 21 gun salutes, and jet flyovers. Well-networked candidates use endorsements by athletes and wear team merch in order to signal their popularity to constituents. Athletes even serve as international ambassadors (Dennis Rodman famously visited North Korea, Herschel Walker and Michelle Kwan are both Trump-era ambassadors in the Caribbean, Mo Farah worked with the UN).

      And then there’s the graft. Politicians regularly get special accommodations from stadium owners in exchange for kickbacks. Athletes and coaches periodically get elevated to run for office (Colin Alred ran for a Texas Senate seat, Tommy Tuberville currently represents Alabama) and use their college/pro-ball networks to raise money for themselves and their political allies. Franchise owners are, themselves, heavily invested in both lowering taxes/cutting regulations and advancing fascistic ideology.

      Go piss up a tree you dumb fucks.

      Sorry. Too much money and influence is trading hands. They can’t stop. They won’t stop.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        Yeah I couldn’t take the fucking NFL in general anymore. It became exactly like America: overhyped, pricier by the year while being worse every year, full of stupid drama, and obviously has its best years behind it.

        Who wants to put up with three hours of shitty beer and truck commercials for 30 minutes of mediocre action? (A lot of America, I guess… But I can’t anymore, this frog hopped out of the pot.)

    • qarbone@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      This isn’t new. People keep asking celebrities about things they have no expertise on, and politicians have been more celebrity than political servant for a long time it seems.

      I don’t care about Ariana Grande’s opinion on the Trump administration insofar as learning whether or not she’s a fascist and I don’t care what kind of music my governor thinks slaps during halftime.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Nah, it’s newer than you think. A lot of it has to do with the rise of the right wing media ecosystem. That’s part of why I brought it up in this thread.

        Like yes, they were planting the seeds of this with brainless morons like Rush Limbaugh, but their rise to prominence as “cultural critics” was really in the last decade or so.

        These dumbass podcast hosts helped immensely with that and so did Trump, who offers his opinion on art and entertainment and thinks it’s the only one that matters.

        The “left wing” media is somewhat complicit in it too. The American media ecosystem overall has shifted to this reality TV or podcast interview mode, where instead of focusing on politicians doing their fucking job they write up articles about their opinions on arts and entertainment.

      • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        The difference being that entertainers use their platform because they think they owe it to their fans. Which is admirable. Is it partially business strategy? No doubt it’s part of it.

        But politicians are giving their opinions on art and NOT doing their job. Which is what the vast majority of people want. They are doing the opposite of that. So they need to function as their main duties before mouthing off on something that isn’t even in their vein.

    • Phegan@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      When you stand for nothing popular, you need to distract people with a culture war. It’s all by design, they are utilizing rage bait to keep us from realizing they are actively fucking us.