The real story of COVID19 is not found in author Bob Woodward’s book on Donald Trump, timed for maximum impact during the U.S. presidential election. The real book of Covid19 won’t be written honestly for years, when the success or failures of masks, lockdowns, vaccines and political opportunism have run their course.

The announcement from General Mark Miley that the military won’t interefere in the 2020 election reminded many of a classic 1962 movie Seven Days In May in which a rogue general (Burt Lancaster) seeks to overthrow a president (Frederick March) who tries to negotiate a disarmament treat with the Soviet Union. A loyal Marine colonel (Kirk Douglas) foils the plot by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Many consider it one of the classic American political movies. As the American 2020 Vote-A-Palooza heads toward a very uncertain finish, it might be time to list the best election/ political dramas in U.S. cinema history.

Give Steven A. Smith credit. He knows what his bosses at ESPN (and Disney) want to hear. Interceptions are less important than intersectionality. Oppression, not pressuring the quarterback. Go guilty or go home. As seen by its capitulation to #BLM no league or its broadcaster has tried harder to appease its black workforce (or the Chinese running shoe manufacturers).

We know one thing. Former NFL running back Ray Rice must be some pissed. He viciously assaulted a woman and his football career was over. #JacobBlakeAmericanRapist sexually assaults a woman, steals her car and kids, pulls a knife— and @NFL wants to put him on a postage stamp.

Erin O’Toole may want to bury Leslyn Lewis’ conservative platform as he panders to the Toronto Star and CBC. But if he wants to succeed as prime minister he’ll need to broaden his appeal past the climate change/ Pro-choice/ pop culture memes of social media’s chattering class.

Neither Michelle Obama nor her husband are changing minds anymore with their pre-recorded speeches. Indeed, that’s not even the goal. It’s to establish the parameters of blame in case Biden loses to Trump in November. It’s not a speech to unite. It’s a speech to divide. And to protect the Obamas from any blame if their ex-VP soils the sheets.

Nowhere is the flexibility of truth— and the demand for complete submission to medical experts— more apparent than in the recent debate over wearing masks. Four months ago, masks were considered extraneous to the protection roll-outs offered by policy forums and research centres. Today they’re gospel.

The term “cases” simply refers to positive tests for Covid19. In the vast number of these cases the person has no knowledge they are sick. They simply feel that their throat is raspy or have a cough. They never miss work. But in the Covid panic these “cases” are thrown into the national numbers with those truly stricken by the virus and used to justify draconian lockdowns and social distancing.

Contemporary society is experiencing its own Weimar experience. But it’s not about a currency depreciating at warp speed. It’s a the frantic erosion of societal norms and values that disappear on a weekly basis. The reaction to examples such as the Trudeau WE ethics mess is that people feel played by their elites.

Having constructed a sympathetic societal response to address minority communities, liberals now find out that they’ve wasted their time. They were the bad guys all along, says Critical Race Theory. There is no possible response from whites, other than surrender, that will satisfy.

The significant difference between the Manson years and today is that, in spite of the widespread rioting, looting, protest marches and media attention to the counter-culture in the 1960s the forces of anarchy and political upheaval never got close to real power in the corporate and business world of the West. They met Chicago mayor Richard Daley head-on in Grant Park and lost. While the counterculture kept trying (and keeps trying) they never got past the 1968 Democratic convention.

It’s that time of the year when young cisgendered heteronormative oppressors’ thoughts turn to football. And that means that BIPOC folk will again experience the cruel oppression of the name Washington Redskins. Washington offends because the first president was a slave holder, and Redskins because it tokenizes and minoritizes the native peoples of North America. Or something.

Was it something we said? Turns out that our recent columns about the knee-capping of TV hosts Wendy Mesley and Ben Mulroney have gotten considerable attention on social media. Which is a good and bad thing. It means you have a sticky story. It also means that the cancel culture has noticed you, too.

Poor Ben Mulroney. The impeccably coiffed interlocutor to the stars on eTalk, the veteran of a seeming thousand red carpets and photo ops has been sideswiped by the very crowd he thought would protect him. Instead of being preserved for the brave new world, he’s become a tasty morsel for the people he’s fed so long.

A single picture is said to be worth a thousand words. But to contemporary media, a single picture is now often a window into a thousand different realities for consumers hoping to make sense of the issues now raging in society— and to politicians trying to find a safe place to land on the issues.

In the end it was a rat who got Wendy Mesley. The CBC TV host of The Weekly was bushwhacked by someone(s) on her show staff, the trust of the unit broken by those who likely sat across from her at story meetings, smiling eagerly as they (I use this pronoun in both the traditional and non-binary sense) contemplated how to step over Mesley to win fame for themselves.

More people die choking on bottle caps than do blacks who are choked by police. But facts are secondary in the war against Orange Man Bad. The real goal is having authority take a knee to the street mobs while media look the other way as looting fills the street.

In this emotive age silent suffering is passé. Death, the natural end of us all, is suddenly La Boheme, an opera of grief and tragedy to play out in the front pages of a paper that once knew better. And now urges its readers to cower in fear of its own shadow.

The #StayAtHome scolds may have finally found their lever to open the entire society to their agenda. Masks. The facial covering associated with Covid-19 has become the buy-in to acceptance of a higher power. The converts even have their own name: Karens. And they’ll let you know just where you stand. Or should not stand.

They say journalism is the first draft of history. So can we do ourselves a favour and stop the Gotcha Game over Covid-19? You know the one. Where the media and political junkies assign blame for governments not being ready for the pandemic that swept over us in February?