Open letter to the Tampa Bay Times

You have embarrassed yourselves big time and you should be ashamed

Congratulations on all your Pulitzer prizes and whatnot but you guys have really shit the bed this time with your Sunday front page story about 9 people who voted for Convict Trump. I have no idea why you wanted to denigrate the whole Tampa community with your pathetic story featuring ignorant, uninformed Tampa area residents. Are you under the illusion that because Convict Trump won the election that he has some kind of national mandate so that you can disregard the truth? If so, and if you still have any shred of journalistic decency in you you would know that almost as many people voted for Harris as for Convict Trump. The final counts are not in yet, but around 51% voted for Convict Trump and 48% voted for Harris - not exactly a landslide or blowout. So why only feature Convict Trump voters? Why not also feature an equal number of Harris voters? Wouldn't it be interesting to give your story some perspective? Why not do some fact checking on the idiots you interviewed? That would be a good story. Or, why not do a story on the fact that roughly a third of eligible voters, roughly 93 million people, did not even show up? Did you know this? That is more than all the people who voted for Convict Trump. Sounds like an interesting story to me, but I'm not paid to do journalism like you.

Another good story for you would be how remarkable and historic it is that anyone convicted on 34 federal felonies and who incited an insurrection against his own country gets elected as president. How does an adjudicated rapist, out on bail in multiple jurisdictions, twice impeached and indicted by grand juries of ordinary citizens for 90 felonies get elected to the highest office in the land? How is that in any way normal? Now that would be a story worthy of the front section of your paper.

And these people you featured - where did you find them? They are obviously members of the MAGA cult and have drunk the kool-aid already. They cite no facts, just the lies that their dear leader has fed them. They are so upset about immigration, but there is no mention of the fact that the most comprehensive immigration reform bill in four decades was killed by their dear leader this year. Convict Trump instructed his bootlickers in Congress to kill the bill, which was sponsored by both parties, just because he wanted to run on the issue. In other words, he doesn't really care about immigration, he only cares about getting reelected, to stay out of prison. Your carefully curated interviewees seem to be unaware of this.

Nor do your folks seem to be aware of any facts related to the economy. You quoted a woman who was afraid to look at her 401k, I assume because Convict Trump told her it was terrible. But if she does look at it, she will see it is at an all-time high. The US economy is the envy of the world right now. And if your university student majoring in finance would take the time to “do his own research” he would learn that the economy has done better under Democrat management than Republican administration for decades. You journalists could look this up too. Try Google. But, hey, he says his news source is YouTube and he lives with his parents so his thoughts are obviously good material for the front section of your paper. This guy should reconsider his major.

So what about the guy who wishes he could be a business partner with Convict Trump. He must not know that Trump was convicted of business fraud in New York and fined a half a billion dollars, or that he has bankrupted numerous businesses including casinos. What about the guy who says Trump will bring in our own oil resources instead of buying from other countries? He's clearly unaware that we are a net exporter of oil and have been for some time. And the guy who hopes Trump will give kids a way to afford school, is he aware that Biden has had a program to forgive and reduce college tuition for the working class? And the guy who says a house is too expensive, is he aware that Harris was offering support to buy your first house while Trump has no such policy? And the woman who thinks an unborn child deserves a chance to live, does she also think the mother deserves a chance to live, rather than bleeding out in the parking lot if she has a medical issue? But, hey, just forget that because Convict Trump said it wasn't a problem. Of course, the men in your interviews never even mentioned women's health care. They don't care, just like Convict Trump doesn't care. Is the teacher aware that she has voted to eliminate the Department of Education under Trump?

I could continue with this, but it's really your job and you failed. Hopefully the Tampa community is smarter than your front page subjects, and smarter than you.