Thoughts for the Day, November 2, 2021: It has been a year.

On the first Tuesday of November 2020 nearly one year ago, we waited anxiously throughout the evening for the presidential election results to come in from across the nation.  It was probably the most important presidential election of my life.  It took until Friday before we knew that Biden won.  Unfortunately, here we are a year later and there are still many Americans who believe the election was stolen by Biden and the Democrats, even though no fraud or election issues were found that would have changed the outcome in any state.  I was hoping that Biden’s victory would help unify the country.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened.  In fact, I think it is worse than before as the radical right and Trump loyalist continue to have a loud and large following while progressives within the Democrat party are trying to force their agenda through congress while the Democrats hold a slim margin in the House and Senate. The Trump loyalist are trying to remove any current Republican who does not support Trump, while the progressive Democrats are putting tremendous pressure on the centrist Democrats to get in line with the progressive’s agenda.  In the meantime, inflation is as high as it has been in years, our roads and infrastructure continue crumble, the deficit is growing, our immigration policies do not work, Republican led state legislatures are enacting legislation which makes it harder for people to vote, the corona virus is still not under control as over 1,000 people are dying every day and the majority of Republican congress members are not supporting a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection, one of the country’s darkest days.  On election day 2020 I couldn’t wait until the election was over with so we could move forward as a country.  Little did I know that we were going to become even more divided as a country. It is so discouraging.

Per the Detroit News, the Michigan-Michigan State didn’t get the prime-time slot. But it sure got the eyeballs. Saturday’s rivalry game, a thrilling battle of unbeatens won by the Spartans, 37-33, was the most-watched college football game of the season, Fox Sports announced Tuesday. The game was watched by an average of 9.289 million viewers. That’s a massive haul for any college football game, but particularly impressive for an in-state showdown so regionalized. By comparison, the previous night’s World Series game averaged 11.5 million viewers. Saturday night’s World Series game averaged 10.771 million.

The MSU-UM game, kicking off at noon on Fox, nearly doubled the best-rated college game from the previous week, Alabama’s win over Tennessee, which averaged 4.7 million viewers on ESPN. UM-MSU did more than double the previous week’s top-rated game on network TV, Oregon’s win over UCLA on ABC, which averaged 3.8 million viewers.

Stay safe.  Wash your hands regularly.  Schedule your vaccine and booster.  Wear your mask.  Social distance.

Orchid of the Day:  My wife Leah, for handling the backup of our basement floor drain like a champion while I was out golfing.

Onion of the Day:  Mother Nature, for making it snow while I was golfing today.

Quote of the Day:   “This is just awful.  We’re going to stop it. It’s outrageous. They’re a bunch of progressives run amok.” Michigan congressman Fred Upton, about the proposed settlements for the families that were separated at the Mexican border.