Maybe if Ted Sarandos buys Trump a gold Bentley…

I don’t see how this gets approved.

Then again, if you’re predicting the future…it’s a fool’s errand, because Trump has become so UNPREDICTABLE!

It’s kind of like antisemitism… You know, they came for the Jews, and I did nothing because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

You’re not an illegal immigrant, so you shrug your shoulders. You don’t live in Venezuela and don’t run drugs, so you shrug your shoulders. You’re not a criminal, so when someone else is pardoned, you shrug your shoulders. Why should you think nothing is going to affect you, why do you think that the whims of a strongman won’t affect your everyday life?

I went to the grocery store yesterday. I bought an 8-pack of Caffeine Free Diet Coke minis, three bottles of Vitamin Water Zero and a small container of cashews… The bill? $40.86. But Trump says there’s no affordability crisis in America.

And today, the Trump Administration said that Europe should emulate the U.S. Elect right wing parties who will stifle migration and promote nationalism. But you don’t live in Europe…

But you do watch streaming television.

Should Netflix get HBO?

On the surface, it’s good for the consumer. Because then you get the best two streaming services for one low price! Don’t ask me how Amazon, Paramount and Peacock compete, because they can’t. We’ll see further consolidation and…

So in the race for subscribers, Netflix has dumbed-down its programming. Sure, HBO focuses on the highbrow, but if there’s no competition…how much highbrow do you need if the public can’t get it anywhere else? Amazon is going down-market intellectually, and Paramount and Peacock have always been slumming it.

But we’re told that the real competition is YouTube! With its own app on your television set/Roku and all that viewing time. But are these two entities really selling the same thing? And do we really want to give Google more power? Eliminating competition?

So they let Universal buy Capitol, after divestiture of certain assets. Was this good for the public, only three major recording companies, who control deals with DSPs? They can coast on their catalogs, they don’t even need to sign new music. And sure, the world has gone indie, so maybe this is okay, then again, there’s that leverage of the catalogs.

And after terrestrial radio consolidation…we have a vast wasteland. But who listens to broadcast radio anymore anyway?

The bottom line is does the future ensure that we need no antitrust enforcement because of ongoing evolution in the marketplace. Maybe the public loses in the short run, but it doesn’t matter in the end.

We could debate that all day long.

We could debate whether more major labels would sign more and different acts, be responsible for more innovation…or is there enough from the outside.

But the bottom line here is the Trump administration.

Skydance got to buy Paramount because Paramount’s CBS settled a bogus lawsuit with Trump and the Ellisons are supporters of the president.

Seemingly every corporate titan has sucked up to the president. For their bottom line. And if you don’t, it’s only a matter of time until you’re caught in the government’s crosshairs…

And this is the opposite of JFK’s the best and the brightest. With doofus Hegseth and RFK, Jr. putting our nation’s health at risk.

Who is steering the ship? A couple of behind the scenes players and the Heritage Foundation, whose leader refused to castigate Tucker Carlson’s interview of Nick Fuentes. As for the Federalist Society, right wing legal bedrock, it now is on the outs with Trump. As referenced above, what makes you think you’re protected, that you’re immune, that in the future you and your livelihood and lifestyle won’t be at risk because of the whims of the government?

The bottom line is we’re all in this together. This is what the public just can’t understand. It’s not us vs. them, it’s just us. We all pay high grocery prices. As for the lowering of fuel standards… It always amazes me when I see these giant SUVs on the road. Who is paying for the gas? People to whom the price doesn’t matter, because they’re so wealthy. The real issue in America isn’t red vs. blue, it’s income inequality. And too many are brainwashed by the proposition that the success of the rich will trickle down to the masses and we should let them operate unfettered, even though these benefits have never been seen.

Too many are snookered. You’ve got the language police on the left and the religious believers on the right, everybody in their corner with opinions on narrow issues that don’t affect the general population. Can we throw all that aside and get real? You can have an opinion all day long on trans women in female sports, but the bottom line is the number of athletes in question is so tiny they couldn’t even field a team!

We’ve got creeping authoritarianism right in front of our eyes, but the Hatfield and McCoys of America are fighting irrelevant battles ad infinitum.

The bottom line is no one knows if this merger will be approved. NO ONE! Probably not even Trump. He’ll make a decision when he has to, after the wooing period is over, after the parties have kissed the ring, or refused to do so.

Or maybe as a condition of the deal Trump is going to require Netflix to cough up 10% to the government, like Intel.

Hollywood has lost the plot. You’ve got movie directors testifying this merger is bad for films… It’s way beyond that, it’s the soul of America.

You can’t plan your future business roadmap because you don’t know how the government will react. Will there be tariffs, regulations…

As someone said to me yesterday, the woke left got so progressive that they drove the country into fascism…

It’s not only the woke left that has to wake up, but the Democratic party. But they refuse to. It comes down to you and me. We are in charge, this is our country, we just cannot shrug our shoulders as Netflix charges fifty bucks a month for less that we want to see. And sure, we’ll have options on YouTube…but who is going to spend a fortune to produce highbrow content on that service?

So we could discuss this merger through an antitrust lens, but that would be a waste of time. It’s just a matter of what Trump thinks and will ultimately do.

As for the reams of press about the details of what a merged Netflix/Warner will look like… This is just like the nation at large, everybody focusing on the wrong issues while ignoring the big picture.

And we’re told by the usual suspects to wait for the next election…

If you think free and fair elections are coming… You haven’t followed the scuttlebutt re voter rolls and so much more. Those in power don’t want to give up power. Period.

But it’s you, it’s us, we truly have the power. And we’ve been asleep. Or fighting amongst ourselves over irrelevant issues.

I don’t want to think about the government all day long and neither do you. And we didn’t used to. But the last decade…

It’s time for this to end, before they foreclose on the power of the public completely.

Hang with those from the other political side… You’d be surprised, you agree on almost everything. Can’t we agree that we want a country run by a democratic process with clear rules that benefit us all?

Because we don’t have that now and we’re all suffering.

And it’s only going to get worse.