UNCjigga
Lifer
No articles, links or Twitter punditry here. These are just my thoughts and opinions. I think Democrats’ utter failure to seize on delayed/cancelled college football narrative for Big Ten/PAC 12 just demonstrates how inept they are at messaging and waging the kind of information warfare Trump’s supporters excel at.
College football is a BFD in the Midwest, and especially so in battleground states like Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Hell, I’d argue Ohio State football alone has a bigger audience than the Bengals, Browns, Lions and Packers combined. So how is it that when the Big Ten announced they were delaying football until Spring, I didn’t see a single ad blaming Trump? I didn’t see any messaging or talking heads blaming Trump. But the lack of a national testing and contact tracing strategy and Dept of Education failures to establish clear guidelines deserves the blame.
In contrast, Trump and his allies in the region jumped on the opportunity to reframe their Administration’s failure. Trump was immediately on Twitter blaming the elite academics for the decision to cancel football. He knew that the fans wouldn’t see eye to eye with the Administrators and Presidents who were easy to recast as enemies, “aloof” or not in tune with college sports culture. All of a sudden this was an “overreaction” on the part of school leaders and not a result of Trump’s failures. Even better for Trump, he could play his favorite persona as the “negotiator” or “dealmaker” that put political pressure on school administrators to save Big Ten football.
And now we’ve come full circle. The Big Ten will be playing before the election. Trump will take credit personally (you know he will) and his allies will publicly “thank” him for saving the season. Just another example of Trump recasting his own failures as a success—just like how Q3 saw the “greatest job gains in history!”
If you don’t believe this will impact results in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania etc.—just wait and see.
/end rant
College football is a BFD in the Midwest, and especially so in battleground states like Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Hell, I’d argue Ohio State football alone has a bigger audience than the Bengals, Browns, Lions and Packers combined. So how is it that when the Big Ten announced they were delaying football until Spring, I didn’t see a single ad blaming Trump? I didn’t see any messaging or talking heads blaming Trump. But the lack of a national testing and contact tracing strategy and Dept of Education failures to establish clear guidelines deserves the blame.
In contrast, Trump and his allies in the region jumped on the opportunity to reframe their Administration’s failure. Trump was immediately on Twitter blaming the elite academics for the decision to cancel football. He knew that the fans wouldn’t see eye to eye with the Administrators and Presidents who were easy to recast as enemies, “aloof” or not in tune with college sports culture. All of a sudden this was an “overreaction” on the part of school leaders and not a result of Trump’s failures. Even better for Trump, he could play his favorite persona as the “negotiator” or “dealmaker” that put political pressure on school administrators to save Big Ten football.
And now we’ve come full circle. The Big Ten will be playing before the election. Trump will take credit personally (you know he will) and his allies will publicly “thank” him for saving the season. Just another example of Trump recasting his own failures as a success—just like how Q3 saw the “greatest job gains in history!”
If you don’t believe this will impact results in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania etc.—just wait and see.
/end rant
