OSU, Notre Dame, the Debate

My tendency to reflexively root for the underdog is undermining my ability to be a fan of OSU and Notre Dame!  When OSU beat some patsy last week by a lopsided score I was found myself accidentally cheering when the other team made yardage.  Similarly the Northern Illinois v ND game was inspiring and so memorable, especially when the coach for Northern Illinois started crying during the interview. 

I think it’s in the American psyche to root for the underdog which is why to some extent Trump is so popular. He has everything going against him - including himself given some of his tendencies! - and yet somehow won the biggest upset of all time in 2016. But I didn't root for him then. 

Say what you will about Trump’s flaws but It's interesting that all the worldly powers of our time: the wealthy, the powerful, the government intel agents who lied about the Biden laptop, the principalities & powers like the New York Times and Washington Posts, all approve of the Jonah Goldbergs and the David Frenchs and the establishment Republicans.  Sometimes the anawim are right.

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Watched the debate the other night, ninety minutes I’ll never get back. Harris acquitted herself well enough but that isn’t too surprising given she’s a lawyer and lacks dementia.  The debate wasn’t for me or the average Americans since the average American has made up his/her mind who they will vote for. This was only about reaching that sliver of undecided in 6-7 states, approximately 250,000 people.  Hence Trump going for the Haitians eating cat in Springfield angle. This was the touchy-feely issue he needed to reach low information voters. He got rapped on the knuckles by the hall monitor but it was interesting to hear the moderator appeal to authority, saying “we reached out to the city manager about that..”.  In other words, journalists uncritically accept what a politician says. That minor thing, in a nutshell, is the problem today, the death of journalism combined with authority figures having proved themselves untrustworthy.