So much political arrogance, so little time. National and local. Partisan and nonpartisan.
What, you may ask, does Donald Trump’s cavalier treatment of his own COVID-19 infection have to do with local, state and federal incumbents’ callous spurn of debating challengers in public?
The easy – too easy – answer is they’re all Republicans. The more complete answer is message manipulation.
Trump calls it “optics,” and that’s what drove him to think it was OK to order Secret Service agents to let him walk out of what was supposed to be isolation at Walter Reed Medical Center and into the back of a presidential armored car so he could ride around and wave to mostly maskless supporters who were magically in place along the sides of nearby roads to cheer him.
As for our three incumbent Tennessee state lawmakers and our 3rd District congressman, it’s the shell game they play with local voters: Trumpeting statements about ways they patriotically love and help state, country and voters – but hiding from those same voters when it suits their purpose.