Dem
51
Ties
1
GOP
48
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy came up with an idea grifty enough to be worthy of his boss. We've written about it before, but the pitch was a TV show showing the Secretary and his family taking a luxe trip around the United States. That's a free vacation (and probably other considerations) for the Duffy family, with the bill being footed by... corporate interests the DOT is responsible for overseeing. Ethics? What ethics?
The show was actually supposed to drop in early July, and for many weeks there was no show and no comment from Duffy's office. It was to the point that many people had concluded he just pocketed the money, which is certainly more efficient than actually going to the trouble of actually creating content. But that's not the case, as it turns out, and the entire 3-hour, 6-episode run was released on YouTube this week.
As you might expect, the whole enterprise is getting terrible reviews. It turns out that neither Duffy nor any member of his family is particularly entertaining or endearing. Further decreasing the entertainment value, though increasing the grift value, the whole show is dangerously close to an infomercial for its sponsors (again, the same entities Duffy is supposed to be regulating). For example, nearly all the vehicles shown are Toyotas. What ever happened to "Buy American"? In one episode, Duffy tours a Boeing plant. In another, he tours one of the manufacturing plants belonging to Texas Materials. Bet you can't guess who three of the main sponsors are.
The good news is that these companies, with their de facto bribes, aren't getting much value for their money. The numbers for the series are in, and they are abysmal. In the first 24 hours, the project got off to an absolutely smashing start, with its first episode attracting a total of 2,900 viewers. It goes downhill from there, with episodes 4/5/6 getting 750, 625, and 659 views, respectively. The grand total, across all six episodes, was 6,679 views. Keep in mind that a person only has to watch for a short period of time (not the whole episode) to count as a "view." Also keep in mind that a whole bunch of reporters watched the series so they could write stories like this one. Finally keep in mind that content like the mind-numbing "Baby Shark Dance" has gotten 17 billion views. These three facts really underscore what a disaster this is; as far as grifts go, it's almost as big a failure as Trump University. (Z)