This Week in PurpleAmerica (4/20-4/27)

We Talk About Trump's Pecker and More!

Let’s talk about Trump’s Pecker.

No, not the one that Jimmy Kimmel made fun of here:

No, we really don’t care about that one. I’m talking about this one:

Pecker owns the National Enquirer, and is a long time friend of the orange menace. Pecker was the opening witness in the Donald Trump/Stormy Daniels payoff scheme trial this week in New York. What Pecker did was turn the nation’s largest tabloid, and by the way, the most read paper in the United States, into a propaganda arm of Trump’s campaign. “How can a supermarket tabloid whose peak days were when they were pitting Dynasty vrs. Dallas influence something as serious as a Presidential election?” you may be asking. Glad you asked.

Stories that would be damning to Barrack Obama, Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton, he routinely promoted and turned into stories the mainstream media eventually covered, even though they were conceived out of thin air by himself and Trump fixer Michael Cohen. They would be reported, picked up by right wing social media platforms, spread all over the web, and then MSM would cite them for their own stories and investigations. We always knew that Pecker was low and shady, and that the National Equirer was a bottom feeding rag, but we rarely get a glimpse at exactly how low it really is. This week, we saw the depths of it’s sludge.

Putting aside the fact that he did this for Donald Trump a moment, think about how incredibly dangerous this is as a template to our democracy. We have a free press, true. Press can do what they want, report what they want and promote whoever they want, great. That’s how the fourth estate works. But Pecker took an established media company, as shady as it was, and turned it into a propaganda arm for political expediency. Imagine if a Democrat coordinated and collaborated with Jeff Bezos to turn the Washington Post into a de facto media arm of the Democratic Party.¹ If you don’t think Tom Cotton’s head wouldn’t explode at the thought of that, you don’t know Tom Cotton.

In some ways, it was kind of political genius. The people Trump wanted to appeal to most are the types of conspiracy favoring, factually deficient, gossippy absorbers that the National Enquirer reaches. They particularly love anything that makes the cherished idols of fame and celebrity look bad. It’s the reason it was an attack dog on Trump’s opponents rather than propping him up as the answer, although it now does that too. The National Enquirer is today what Pravda was in the old Soviet Union and the Daily Worker is to the Communist Party; a propaganda rag not meant to inform but to sway your political leanings.

The sad and depressing thought about this is that as more media gets siloed, and more people pay for reading news that they are already predisposed to agree with, I see this kind of relationship only getting more prevalent and worse. The economics that underscore the situation only go in one direction at the moment, and that is in favor of bottom feeding sludge like this.

God help us.

PurpleAmerica’s People of the Past Week

The Good

The NBA Playoffs. The NBA Playoffs began this week and every game has been outstanding so far. The way many players can go half-a** during the regular season and then turn it up a notch on a dime really kind of is astounding. In one day we had two great games come down to final shots to win it and have seen some amazing games by Anthony Edwards, SGA, Damian Lillard and the entire New York Knicks (for once!). Its going to be a great playoffs, and right now, anyone can still win it all.

The NFL Draft. ESPN took a mundane boring affair that was like watching a national teleconference and turned it into a sports fan’s must-see event. You buy into the hype, you hang on every 10 minutes to say “I’ll just watch one more pick” and you end up glued to your sets for four straight hours. It’s like crack for football fans.

The Bad

Prince Harry and Megan Markle. From being a Prince and 6th in line to the British throne to hawking jams and being upset a royal cottage that was given to them has been rescinded. I’d say that’s about as steep as a fall as one can get, second only to Prince Andrew. ²

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They do such an annual horrorshow of selecting who gets in every year that this time, they not only selected crappy inductees but also a slew of other mediocrities that weren’t even nominated. Why? Because they could.

The Ugly

David Pecker. With such an unfortunate name, he had to give the NY Court all the details of his seedy business, including how they concocted out of thin air stories about Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz. In a nutshell, there’s rock bottom, there’s about 1,000 miles of slime and fith, and then there is Pecker.

That obnoxious AT & T NBA Commercial. Set to the tune of Christina Aguilera’s “What a Girl Wants” and starring two rising NBA stars in SGA and Chet Holmgren, their off-tune rendition of it is more painful than the worst shrieks in Hell. Whatever corporate boardroom marketing meeting thought that having 7 foot deep voiced guys sing an Aguilera song was smart should be fired. Yesterday.

The NY Court of Appeals. This one takes the cake of ugliest, without question. On Thursday they reversed Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction 4-3, saying it was prejudicial to have other victims who claimed they had been assaulted by Weinstein but were not a part of the allegations against him. To an extent, as a lawyer, I get it. On the other hand, this was not the case to make that argument. It may have been prejudicial, but it also showed consistent patterns, modus operendi and the leverage he imposed on these women. Weinstein is still in jail for 16 years on other charges, but this case should not have been overturned.

Have a nominee for us to consider? Send an email to purpleamericanunity@gmail.com!

PurpleAmerica Pop Culture Random Top Five

This week: The Top 5 NFL Draft Busts

5. Tony Mandarich. The “Incredible Bulk” and “Then Greatest OLine Prospect Ever” dubbed by SI was later dubbed as “The Incredible Bust” in the same magazine. He later became a serviceable lineman, but never lived up to his potential.

4. Rick Mirer. The Zoolander of NFL QBs— couldn’t go left.

3. Ryan Leaf— Leaf has come around to admitting his issues. Yes, he was at one time considered ahead of future HOFer Peyton Manning. He lacked maturity and flamed out dramatically. He now counsels NFL draft prospects about transitioning to the NFL.

2. Jamarcus Russell. Al Davis saw him throw a 75 yd pass from his knees and fell in love. Unfortunately, he didn’t do much else. Staff gave him a blank tape once and told him to watch it for study to see if he would actually watch what was being sent home with him. The next day he told the coaches he learned a lot from it.

1. Any QB drafted in the first round by the Browns since Bernie Kosar. Oy, where to begin. I’d say Baker Mayfield was the exception, but when it came to eventually pay him when his rookie contract was up, they traded him away in favor of serial sexual assaulter and prison evader Deshaun Watson.

PurpleAmerica’s Best Articles of the Week

This Washington Post article really struck me, and it’s in line with everything I have been saying all along. Titled “Want to Help Trump? Keep up the White Rural Rage Stereotyping,” it makes a lot of important points about the misperceptions and assertions of the left that are counterproductive to their goals of promoting Joe Biden.

Among some of the main points the authors want to get across are as follows:

It really is a must read and I strongly recommend people read it. Most progressives are content to just keep to the urban centers, hoping that gives them enough Electoral Votes and Congressional seats to get them bare majorities. I’m not. Biden should be cruising to victory with a 400+ Electoral Vote landslide in 2024, ushering in a new positive political landscape in a more liberal direction. The reason he’s not is because most of the country disagrees vehemently with the far left fringe and the extent they go to alienate everyone else.

PurpleAmerica’s Subscriber Mail

When we here at PurpleAmerica Respond to the Teeming Millions (well, we’re still working on that first million)

Have a question you want us to answer? Email us at purpleamericanunity@gmail.com

Ah yes, like clockwork. I knew last week was too good to be true and it was wrong to expect every week to be so positive. Some of the usual offenders sending emails again—that’s fine. Sometimes I wonder if they do it to just argue with me. Nonetheless, my post about Gen Z needing an economics lesson seemed to trigger a bunch out there.

PurpleTrickleDownTurd,

You are such a Reagan “trickle down” fanboy you make me sick. You think the problem are student loans? Really? What about the grossly exaggerated profits these megacorporations take from the economy driving up prices!? You’re as clueless about the problems facing this country as every other right winger…

PurpleConservative,

Apple is worth a Trillion Dollars, Meta and Google are almost there, and you are saying the problem is that my $95k in student loans is what is driving inflation? You’re fucking clueless.

PurpleAmerica,

Maybe you should be focusing on the record high corporate profits as driving inflation and not the students trying to get a degree.

And it went on like this. A total of 11 emails basically saying the same thing and completely clueless when it comes to economics. It’s like the economically uninformed came into the conversation with their pre-conceived notions about what drives costs and profits and if you pointed out how wrong they were they cried out in one voice “HERETIC!” You know, I wrote a piece a few weeks back about this phenomenon and as much as economics is considered a social science that follows distinct patterns and rationales, the same people who would routinely say trust the science, Pluto isn’t a planet and religions are frauds really seem to just follow their gut and believe in blind faith when it comes to economics. So let me put it even more clearly.

Let’s say you run a business. You make widgets that cost $1 to make. You charge $2, so you get a dollar profit for each one you sell. They are WILDLY popular, and you realize you can charge more. You up it to $4. But they still remain wildly popular so you up it to $16. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t raise the price—of course you would. But they still are wildly popular….

The situation above is what the root cause in inflation is. Higher demand than supply. If you were that company, you would never keep your prices at $2—why? Keynes had an answer for that— the price would be set at where the supply (how many widgets you can produce) evens out with the demand (how much people are willing to pay for a widget). Coincidentally, its at that point in equilibrium between supply and demand that the profits are optimized, which is the goal of any business. To make money. It’s only when supply outpaces demand that prices come DOWN. When people don’t spend money on your widgets, you have to lower your price to keep selling them and optimize the profit you can make.

Coincidentally, this dynamic is also what drives the prices of school tuitions through the roof in the first place, adding to the debts of millions who chose to go to college instead of work, trade school or military service. Students assumed that learning about Plato, Art History or reading The Age Of Innocence would make them more marketable for jobs, but then they didn’t get the degrees or have the experiences that employers really want. We don’t need more people who can extrapolate on the use of light and darkness in a Manet; there are already too many of those for the number of museum curator positions available. So too many are stuck with Bennington tuition size loans on a social worker’s salary. What jobs are in high demand now? Nurses, computer programmers, electricians and plumbers; all jobs that you can get going through a trade school or community college instead of Top 20 Private College that charges through the roof tuitions. Throwing more money at more kids to go to college actually contributes to inflated college costs— with more money, schools know they can receive more and the tuitions INCREASE FURTHER, further spiraling student loan dependence and increasing what students owe.

So if you are upset about Apple profits, quit buying iPhones and Apple gear. If you are upset about gas companies profiting, go electric. If you are upset at how much college costs, go to a trade school and get your electricians certificate (they may even give you an apprenticeship!). If you are upset at the world, go to remote Nunavut Canada and live off the grid. Factor into your economic decisions how much things COST, and the tradeoffs involved with that (an economic term referred to as “opportunity cost”). If you are upset at any company or sector, stop buying their products—lower the demand. That’s how you stop inflation.

Dear PurpleAmerica,

“OfCletus.” You don’t know how long I laughed at that.

OfPurpleAmerica

Wow, you putting it like that makes me feel like I have a groupie. I wonder what my wife would say.

PurpleAmerica’s Historical Note from This Week

On April 26th, at 1:23 and 54 seconds A.M. local time, the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor in the northeast corner of Ukraine (then within the U.S.S.R.) exploded, leading to the greatest nuclear incident in world history.

Initially, the Soviets denied anything serious had occurred. It wasn’t until radiation monitors at nuclear facilities in Sweden and Germany started going haywire that they finally fessed up and acknowledged the incident. The conditions that caused the massive explosion, were actually related to of all things, a safety test. Nobody knows how big the explosion actually was, but the reactor which was typically meant to run at 500-750 MW, the last reading before the reactor exploded was 18,000 MWs.³ In the immediate aftermath, while the core of the reactor was exposed, the radioactivity being released was greater than 5 Hiroshima bombs every 24 hours. In trying to contain the reactor during the meltdown by dumping silicates and boron onto the burning reactor, scientists created a toxic lava sludge they dubbed “corium” which is considered the most radioactive chemical ever created.⁴

There has been a rekindled interest in Chernobyl as Gen Xers get older and reflect on the event. Adam Higginsbotham’s book, “Midnight in Chernobyl” is an excellent reflection on it and absorbing. Its a fantastic read. The HBO award winning miniseries “Chernobyl” was also excellently done and deserves your attention.

The costs associated with the disaster are largely seen as contributing to the end of the Soviet Union. It most definitely prompted Gorbachev to many of the economic reforms necessary to maintain the country. There are still reactors running at Chernobyl and the damaged reactor is encased in a newly created sarcophagus; it still gives off higher levels of radioactivity and is anticipated to well into the future. The nearest town of Pripyat is a ghost town with decaying buildings and is slowly returning to the wild. Although the Exclusion Zone is currently in the middle of the war between Russia and Ukraine, prior to the recent war, Pripyat was starting to become a tourist destination with people venturing into the area and back in time to Cold War 1986 when people were fearful of nuclear bombs, but an indiscript reactor in a far off corner of Ukraine started to bring home the power and fallout of such dangerous weapons.

PurpleAmerica’s Dad/Uncle/Cheesy Joke of the Week

I was going to make a joke about retirement. It did not work.

And with that…

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. Yes, I know some believe it is. It isn’t. It’s editorial page is left leaning but still employs Marc Thiessen and George Will. The non-editorial parts of the paper is more objective reporting, but in this day and age leans left because the right cause so much irrational non-sensical outrage.

2. For those who haven’t followed, Andrew was routinely on Epstein Island and has had accusations that he engaged in sex with minors while on the island. He’s denied the allegations but like Harry, has taken a step back from royal duties and has been roundly shunned as persona non grata at a lot of royal events.

3. You remember in Back to the Future when Doc Brown freaked out about 1.21 gigawatts? Well, the Chernobyl reactor cleared 18 and likely was much bigger than that!

4. It cannot be created in nature and is only found in meltdown situations. To date, it has been only found in three places; Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukishima Daiichi Power Plant in Japan. All three of these are considered the most severe nuclear incidents ever. Chernobyl currently is the only place where the long term pollution caused by corium is actively being studied.