In pandemic, America needs diversion
Tom Brady and Bernie Sanders don’t have much in common. One is pals with President Donald Trump and believes rules exist to be deflated. The other is primarily on a losing streak, one of embarrassing proportion. I’m not a fan of Brady or Sanders. But America needs them right now.
Diversions are essential in times of trouble. Sanders and Brady are among those providing us with an occasional break from the danger and destruction of the novel coronavirus.
During the Great Depression, theaters could offer an escape for a couple of hours. They showed Duck Soup, The Grapes of Wrath and other movies for people with tastes in between. But COVID-19 has shuttered theaters.
Major League Baseball also played on during the Great Depression. Yankees slugger Babe Ruth made $80,000 in 1930. An irritated reporter pointed out this was more than President Herbert Hoover’s salary.
“I know, but I had a better year than Hoover,” the Babe supposedly said.
Now the virus has halted big-league baseball, as well as professional and college basketball.
Football season is still about six months away. Who knows if the coronavirus will delay or shut it down altogether?
Brady, who’s bigger than life, has chipped away some of the pessimism. A six-time Super Bowl champion as quarterback of the New England Patriots, he has kept the sporting world in the news during the fury and worry about a spreading disease.
He cut ties with the Patriots after 20 seasons. Brady, 42, will sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
He’s departing a dynasty for a nondescript outfit. Sports bars are closed in most places, but Brady’s surprise move is giving people something to talk about besides the wobbling financial markets or hospitals in need of ventilators to combat the pandemic.
I like to imagine Brady playing in his 10th Super Bowl, a losing performance against the Steelers. It would mean the coronavirus no longer had a stranglehold on the planet, and the country was back in business.
Unlike Brady, Sanders is washed up in his game, that of presidential politics.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has bested Sanders in Democratic primary elections all month.
Everyone, the candidates included, knows Sanders can’t win. But he refuses to quit. He gets cantankerous about it, too, like a headmaster who’s tired of students asking annoying questions.
This provides an occasional source of amusement in a country that needs laughs almost as much as it needs fiscal responsibility after President Donald Trump’s excesses.
Sanders hasn’t come to terms with his tailspin. He considered himself the Democratic front-runner after successes in three small states. Then Biden began trouncing Sanders on Super Tuesday, March 3.
Sanders’ failures have mounted since. This week, Biden routed him in Arizona, Florida and Illinois.
Many of Sanders’ supporters seem less sportsmanlike than the candidate. Sometimes I feel like a talk-show host fielding calls from his backers, all with the same complaint. They say an elite tier of the Democratic Party conspired to bury Sanders.
How this was accomplished with millions of voters casting secret ballots in state after state is a point they choose to avoid.
What happened in this primary campaign had nothing to do with a conspiracy. Most Democrats wanted a candidate who can defeat Trump in November. That left Sanders out.
Some claim Sanders remains in an unwinnable race to help his base. With the coronavirus slashing financial markets and
killing the travel industry, Trump will look to bail out corporations.
Sanders will say he’s the voice of ordinary people suffering through an extraordinary time. He ignores that Biden is already doing this, and that the former vice president has more clout since he’s going to be the nominee.
For the moment, though, the senator from Vermont still has a megaphone on the national stage. He doesn’t want to give it up.
Trump has to hope Sanders isn’t a statesman, that he will sow division instead of encouraging his supporters to rally behind Biden.
The Democrats’ campaign for president seemed endless. Now it’s all but over before the end of March.
No so for the coronavirus pandemic. It might dominate and damage the country for months.
Brady won’t play a game until at least September. Sanders is finished as a presidential candidate.
But whatever they say gets my attention. Politics, football and even political footballs are welcome for the moment.
Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.