COVID Who? The UFC Sells Out VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville Florida for UFC 261

     The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the biggest and most famous mixed martial arts promotion in the world. It has grown since its founding in 1993 from a small almost cult-like following to selling out crowds of thousands of people as the biggest promotion in the sport. Dana White, the president of the company known for his straight talk and sometime brash behavior, has led the promotion to great success. Up until last year, the UFC seemed as though it was becoming unstoppable as it finally broke into the arena of mainstream sports when it signed a deal with ESPN to air UFC events on ESPN and ESPN+. However, as COVID-19 struck in the spring of 2020 and restrictions on large gatherings like sporting events were put in place across the nation, the future of the UFC was in doubt. However, by May of 2020, the UFC was able to establish COVID-19 safety standards, and began negotiating with states to start putting on UFC events again. The first of these events was held on May 9^th, 2020, in Jacksonville, Florida. One notable absence, however, was the packed crowd which typically brought so much excitement and energy to the fights. The UFC continued hosting crowd less events like this for nearly a year, until yesterday April 24^th, 2021, when the UFC held the first major indoor sporting event in the United States with no crowd size restrictions, selling out 15,000 seats in the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, in Jacksonville, Florida for UFC 261. Prior to the event, the Mayor of Jacksonville and Florida Governor Ron Desantis made an appearance at the event’s press conference where they spoke to resounding cheers and applause after which Dana White thanked them for hosting the UFC and finally allowing spectators to return.

     Whether you support the decision by Dana White and Florida to allow the return of full crowds to indoor events or not, it certainly seems to be marking a tipping point in the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, and it may lead to there being more support for other states to open up to the UFC and other sporting events. Governor Ron Desantis seemed to be insinuating this in part of his speech when he says, “this event is good for Florida, we’re happy y’all are going to have a good time, but it’s going to be great for people that are watching on TV to see the fans back, to see all this stuff happening.” It will be interesting to see how this UFC event influences the discussion and perspectives surrounding COVID-19 restrictions across the country and if it perhaps even leads to real policy changes in other cities and states.

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Lessons Learned?

 

     It is well known that the media played a major part in the rise of Donald Trump and his eventual winning of the 2016 election. Donald Trump started out as a new and relatively little-known figure in the political realm only to become a household name within a matter of weeks after the announcement of his campaign for president. All this also happened despite Trump spending a fraction of the money on advertising as other major republican candidates. Much of this was due to the incredible amount of “free” or “earned” media coverage he received which totaled to nearly $2 billion by May 2016 even while he spent a mere $10 million on advertising. Contrast this to Jeb Bush who spent eight times as much on advertising but only received $214 million in free advertising from the media. One might think though, wasn’t much of this coverage overtly negative for Trump? While yes, much of the coverage was negative, it still served Trump’s campaign by providing him with essential components to a successful political campaign such as increasing name recognition across the country and positioning himself to the public as a candidate with a decent chance of winning the election. Since then, there has been a significant amount of discussion and recognition by political pundits and the rest of the mainstream media about the role they played in Trump’s rise. Some in the media went as far as to prepose that the media restrain itself in its coverage of Trump as they were inadvertently giving him too much coverage. Given this, however, it is interesting that the media seem to be falling right back into the same habits with one of the new presumed GOP front runners and challengers to the Democrats in 2024: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

     Over the last year and especially in recent months, the mainstream media has started to cover stories involving Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. While many of these stories are either neutral or cast the governor and his actions in a negative light, they are still providing free media exposure for the governor. While DeSantis has not announced that he is running for the GOP nomination for president in the 2024 election, it is becoming clear that he is certainly positioning himself to do so, and the media are certainly covering him as though he is likely to. Coverage of DeSantis perhaps reached its greatest degree yet on April 10^th with the New York Times publishing a piece with a profile of DeSantis and a discussion of his potential as a GOP front runner. This begs the question. Is the media doing exactly what they did with Donald Trump? Is DeSantis, a popular political figure in Florida but previously little-known outside of the state, going to rise to nation-wide popularity through increasing media coverage over the next few years? He is certainly well on his way if the New York Times is any indication.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, A Potential Front Runner?

 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be emerging as a potential front runner for the GOP in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. His rise to the governorship in Florida had gone mostly unnoticed by anyone outside of Florida who was not an astute political observer. However, over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, DeSantis’ popularity, among both supporters and critics, has grown to become nation-wide. The governor’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida, resisting the most stringent lockdown recommendations and rather focusing efforts on protecting the most vulnerable Florida residents, such as the elderly living in long-term care facilities, has drawn fire from critics and support from those opposed to stringent COVID-19 lockdowns. Critics cite his disregard for certain advice from public health officials, but supporters applaud him for his efforts to keep Florida as open as possible, allowing children to return to school sooner than most states and for preserving Florida’s businesses by permitting them to stay open. However, as DeSantis has grown in popularity, he has also caught the attention of the mainstream media who associate him with the divisive and brash former president, Donald Trump, who supported DeSantis’ campaign for governor. Just recently, perhaps in the most notable attack on DeSantis to date by the mainstream media, CBS’s 60 Minutes accused the governor of running a pay to play operation with popular Florida supermarket chain Publix. In a press conference, 60 Minutes reporter Sharyn Alfonsi accused DeSantis of favoring Publix for a contract to rollout the COVID-19 vaccine because Publix had donated to DeSantis’ campaign. 60 Minutes then cut out substantial and relevant portions of DeSantis’ answer, making it appear as though DeSantis had rudely and abruptly cut off the reporter and had avoided answering the question. In reality, the Governor provided a detailed answer of how and why Publix was chosen, only cutting the reporter off after she continued to accuse him of corruption. The obviously misleading cutting of DeSantis’ response by 60 Minutes was so egregious that even Democrat officials in Florida came to the governor’s defense. Democrat Mayor of Palm Beach, Dave Kerner, stated that “The reporting was not just based on bad information - it was intentionally false. I know this because I offered to provide my insight into Palm Beach County's vaccination efforts and 60 Minutes declined.” Another former Democrat state representative now serving as the director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, also criticized 60 Minutes’ accusation and depiction of the situation as “just absolute malarkey.”

          Obviously, the ire of the mainstream media has now turned to Governor DeSantis as he is rising in popularity and presents a threat to Democrat control of the White House is 2024. The 60 Minutes story will likely not be the last dishonest reporting targeted toward DeSantis as the election draws closer. DeSantis’ firm no-nonsense approach to the media is also likely not creating much warmth in his relationship with them. DeSantis’ brand is starting to be termed “competent Trumpism,” and if there is one thing we know the media will resist with all there power, it is a return of someone with the backbone of Trump but with intellect and self-control to boot.

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It’s Undeniable and Seriously Concerning

 

     

     For years during the Trump presidency, the media, politicians, and others questioned Trump’s mental fitness and, at times, even outright stated that Trump was suffering from a host of mental disorders from narcissistic personality disorder to dementia. In 2017, multiple mental health experts controversially published a book titled “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” which asserted that then President Trump was suffering from several mental health disorders, and that due to this, he posed a clear and present danger to the safety of the United States and the world. Vox even produced a mini-documentary in 2018 which discussed this book and further impugned then President Trump’s mental health. The video goes on to show nearly every mainstream media outlet doing the same. As recently as October, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced a bill to establish a bipartisan commission on the 25^th Amendment on account of Trump’s behavior post treatment for his COVID-19 infection last fall. During the press conference announcing the bill the speaker went as far as to say that “there may be some impairment in judgment” and that Trump “was in an altered state.” However, with President Trump gone, this same type of scrutiny on the mental health of the president seems to have also evaporated despite the ever more obvious issues with the new president.

     It is becoming clearer that President Biden is suffering mental and physical decline. During the 2020 presidential race, Biden gaffed constantly and had more than a few occasions where he seemed confused such as when he asked a crowd in South Carolina to consider him for the Senate, when he mistook his wife for his sister, or when he responded to an interviewer asking about a cognitive test by asking if the interviewer had “take a test where your taking cocaine or not” and then repeatedly stumbling over the very words “physical and mental fitness.” As president, Biden has continued along this trend. On March 19^th, President Biden fell several times ascending the stairs to Air Force One, and in the first press conference of his presidency held nearly a week later on March 25^th, Biden had several occasions where he seemed visibly confused and could not finish sentences without verbally stumbling and viewing his binder full of notes. Just recently, while announcing the new director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (ATF) he had nominated, President Biden repeatedly misstated the acronym for the ATF, twice calling it the AFT instead. Considering the obviousness of his decline, the silence of the mainstream media, excluding Fox News and other conservative media, is deafening. Vox is not running mini documentaries lambasting President Biden for his mental fitness nor are mental health professionals running around publishing books about it and asserting that Biden poses a clear and present danger to the United States. Considering Biden’s recent remarks during an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during which Biden called Vladimir Putin a killer and said that Putin would pay a price, it seems that if ever there was a clear and present danger, it would be the heightening of tensions between two major nuclear powers with an already long and rough history. Even when given a chance to clarify his response on what price Putin would pay, President Biden simply stated “well, you’ll see shortly.” The gaffs, confusion, and lack of clarity from President Biden may have been amusing to some during the campaign, but now as president, his declining health poses a serious problem. The consequences are no longer a few jokes and critical news articles from Fox News. Now the very safety and security of the United States is on the line; it's undeniable and seriously concerning.      

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The Free Exercise Thereof

 

     A Good Friday service at a Roman Catholic church in London was halted by police on account that it violated UK COVID-19 rules which limit the size of church congregations. The attendees were threatened with fines and arrest if they refused to disperse. In video of the incident, one of the officers can be heard addressing the crowd stating: “Ladies and Gentlemen, this gathering is unfortunately unlawful under the coronavirus regulations we have currently. You are not allowed to meet inside with this many people under law. At this moment in time, you need to go home. Failure to comply with this direction to leave and go to your home address ultimately could lead to you being fined £200, or if you fail to give your details, to you being arrested.” It is easy to brush this incident aside, whether in agreement with the actions taken by the police or if you believe that this is something that happens in a country where the free exercise of religion is not protected by a governing constitution. However, this type of incident will likely not be an isolated one and unfortunately will likely not be only seen in the UK. 

     Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been tension between U.S states attempting to enforce COVID-19 restrictions and the freedom of every American to exercise their religion. Back in February, the Supreme Court partially struck down some of the most stringent restrictions targeting churches in California. The court allowed churches to be exempt from the public health order which was attempting to ban indoor services in areas with widespread COVID-19 infections, but still allowed the ban on singing to go through (yes, you read that correctly, the California government is banning singing). This has led scholars and regular citizens alike to speculate on the interplay between religious freedom and governmental powers to ensure the safety of the community during this pandemic. However, I would like to posit that the government has no business putting any kind of restrictions on the freedom guaranteed by the U.S Constitution that Americans shall have the right to freely exercise their religion. Considering people attended their Good Friday services and will be attending their Easter services by their own decision, under their own agency, the government has no right to remove this agency and thus stomp on the freedom of every American to freely exercise their religion. The type of action seen in the video at the beginning of this article is part of the very reason the crafters of the Constitution included this freedom in the very first amendment. It is foundational to a free society. If individuals, with free will and reason, make the decision that they are willing to risk safety in favor of being able to practice their religion freely, then that should be a decision they make; the government should not be making it for them. Liberty comes with risk, but it is certainly preferable to the alternative. Ask the members the Christ the King Polish Catholic Church in Balham, south London.

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