The Governor vs The President
Pritzker puts war with Trump ahead of what's best for kids in Illinois
The most befuddling question about the Governor’s continued defiance about football in Illinois is the hardest to substantiate.
Why? What reason does he have for remaining stubborn?
Others around him adapt. The Big Ten reversed course Wednesday and will now play in 2020. Leaders of neighboring states show that pliability is not a weakness but a virtue. High school football in Michigan kicks off this Friday after the sport was dead in the water two weeks ago.
Geoff Kimmerly, media and content coordinator of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, told MLive.com about the challenges of ticket distribution for the state’s opening weekend.
Wouldn’t we like to have their problems?
Instead, Illinois’ problem is the state’s highest-elected official, whom when it comes to the resumption of athletics and its massive participation constituency, acts more like a tyrant than a servant.
Tuesday, Pritzker spoke loosely about the subject of #ReturnToPlay. Most deflating about his comments is how is how nothing has changed in two months. Pritzker refused to explain himself in late July and he refused to give any specifics Tuesday.
Wednesday, at a scheduled press conference to discuss the latest virus news, he spoke more at length. When asked pointed questions, he offered these remarks:
Doctors are deeply concerned in particular by contact sports when there is an exchange of sweat and saliva, other things going on on the field on a regular basis. Not to mention there is very little protection in the locker room. In a typical locker room there is not much social distancing as you know. There are concerns about that in addition to the field of play.
We finally have some fragmental material on what metrical algorithm Pritzker’s medical team might be using. But it begs the question…has he or his doctors spoken to anyone who knows anything about how the sport of football is played?
According to the Wall Street Journal, the average football play “lasts about four seconds.” A general average of number of plays is 60 per side, with 20 for special teams. That’s leaves 140 plays.
That would mean 560 seconds of actual playing of football, or just over nine minutes.
The latest CDC guidelines for contract tracing states this:
Contact tracing will be conducted for close contacts (any individual within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes) of laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients.
That’s 15 minutes, or more than five minutes more than the amount of time an average football game is played. If they bothered to watch a football game (trust me, Gov, there’s a lot football on the television right now) contact tracing guidelines for ‘close contact’ would only really need to be tracked with defensive and offensive lineman.
And the overwhelming majority of lineman don’t play both ways, every play. Let’s say the most action a two-way lineman gets in a game is 100 plays. That’s 400 seconds, or 6.67 minutes.
Do they know how easy it is to access this information?
The stuff about locker rooms, does he not know that school leaders have already put guidelines in place to minimize locker room usage? Individual school districts and athletic officials don’t need the long arm of Springfield for counsel on best locker room practices. It’s disingenuous and absurd.
When Pritzker deferred to a Illinois Department of Public Heath official, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, she gave a vague answer about specific data the state is using to make decisions.
As we see what thresholds for positivity might decrease the risk enough for sports to happen, the high risk sports, we are going to be assembling all of that information using what is happening in other settings as well to try and make the most informed decisions
What are the thresholds? What is the calculus for risk tolerance? What constitutes an ‘informed’ decision? We still don’t know.
Dr. Ezike did go on to say how no one wants to see kids on the sideline. In a moment of staged empathy, Pritzker made a reference to how we all want kids back in the classroom and on the field.
He has the authority to make it happen. But he won’t And he still won’t explain why.
Poor Craig Anderson, Executive Director of the Illinois High School Association.
In comments to a few media outlets in response to Pritzker’s Tuesday comments, one could sense the exasperation in the tone of his words
“I think our hands are tied with the governor saying we’re not going to proceed,” Anderson said.
Pritzker’s comments Tuesday (and Wednesday, I’m sure) were the first Anderson or the IHSA had heard from the Governor. A letter sent last week asking for permission to begin the process of scheduling sidelined fall sports was never answered. All the IHSA got from Pritzker’s office was a condescending response from his Deputy Governor Jesse Ruiz.
“Go away. We don’t owe you anything. Please don’t bother us again with your trivial matters,” is basically what the Governor’s office said, with a middle finger extended.
This arrogant attitude is consistent in dealings with the IHSA. He never answered messages over the summer about the return to play, instead taking the podium and undercutting the IHSA with a one page ‘All Sports Guidance’ document that might as well have been put together by a group of college interns during their lunch break.
The document changed the course of lives of thousands of young people in this state, severely restricting the resumption of sports in Illinois.
All we are left to do is speculate Pritzker’s motives as he won’t explain himself.
Why? Why is he so defiant?
I believe the reason is as old as a Shakespearean sonnet.
Ambition. With a large helping of old fashioned politics thrown in, of course.
The writing was on the wall when Pritzker took on the President earlier this spring.
Remember then? In the early stages of the virus when we were all learning about PPE and freaked out about hospital capacity and supplies of ventilators? When ‘bending the curve’ became cultural vernacular?
Pritzker got in a Twitter and verbal war with President Trump over his initial handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
On April 15, Pritzker told this to CNN:
We’ve gotten very little help from the federal government. It’s fine. I’ve given up on any promises that have been made. I hope something will get delivered from the federal government but I don’t expect it anymore.
His comments came as a rebuke to Trump, who earlier that day put responsibility for testing in the hands of states and governors.
A few months later, in the aftermath of the George Floyd death and ensuing national chaos, Pritzker again took on Trump.
In a conference call with Trump and state governors, Pritzker criticized the President for the White House response immediately after the video of Floyd surfaced and protests begain in Minneapolis.
His confrontational dissent brought praise from Democratic leaders, his profile elevated. Emboldened and cheered on by his peers, Pritzker made more rounds on national talk shows. Again on CNN, Pritzker said this about Trump:
The fact is that the President has created an incendiary moment here. He wants to change the subject from his failure over coronavirus, a miserable failure. And now seeing a moment when there's unrest because of the injustice that was done to George Floyd that he now wants to create another topic and something where he can be the law and order president. He's been a miserable failure
Take that, Mr. President.
A few weeks later, in mid-June, Trump sent a letter to Pritzker (along with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot). The letter addressed crimes in Chicago as a result of protests and looting that occurred after George Floyd. Here are a few excerpts from the letter:
If you are willing to put partisanship aside, we can revitalize distressed neighborhoods in Chicago, together.
The combination of crime, high State and local taxes, and onerous State and local government regulations have caused thousands of Illinoisans to flee to other States. Between 2010 and 2019, Illinois lost more of its population than any other state in the Nation.
My Administration would also welcome the opportunity to engage with you and your colleagues as you develop bipartisan policy recommendations to improve policing and make our great cities safer for all
Your lack of leadership on this important issue continues to fail the people you have sworn to protect
Unfortunately, you continue to put your own political interests ahead of the lives, safety, and fortunes of your own citizens. The people of Chicago deserve better.
Taking Lightfoot out of it and the specific circumstances behind the letter, does that sound familiar? Does the content read all that much different than recent correspondence from Anderson and the IHSA?
Predictably, Pritzker blew off the letter from Trump like a child in a playground hissy fit:
President Trump is a failure who has once again resorted to a press stunt in order to detract from his long list of failures, especially his response to the deadly coronavirus and nationwide calls for racial justice. The people of this state and this nation have unfortunately come to expect his unhinged attempts to politicize tragedy with his predictable and worn-out strategy to distract, distract, distract. The Governor stands with the Mayor in working to accomplish meaningful change."
Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks back to you. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
The final datapoint came a few weeks ago when Trump inserted himself in the college football return to play debate.
A phone call to B1G commissioner Kevin Warren, lobbying for the conference to get back on the field, was gleefully tweeted about by Trump:
Pritzker didn’t respond to this tweet, but he didn’t have to.
As soon as Trump publicly campaigned for football it was done, over. The ping-pong match between the two alpha dogs required Pritzker to take the alternative stance.
The B1G Conference announced Wednesday it would resume play in 2020. Trump will take credit and Pritzker will silently nod his head and think, ‘I was right. I am right. The bastard can stick it up his you know what.’
That’s how politics work. Especially when one player has lofty ambitions and zero motivation to change.
In Michigan, the Governor in that state I’m sure has contempt for Trump. But Gretchen Whitmer was not as publicly vocal as Pritzker about her disgust. And Michigan is one of a few states that could swing the presidential election this November. Someone in the DNC whispered in Whitmer’s ear and said as much to her. That’s why she signed an executive order for the return of football.
That was never going to happen here.
In my Tuesday column I put a line in about placating unions. I think that is part of this equation as it is for any politician when it comes to their support groups. But when I thought about it more, talked to a few more people, I think it’s simpler, and thus, more disheartening for all parties involved, no more so than for the children of this state.
When Pritzker filibusters when responding to legitimate questions about the return of football and an actionable plan for all sports, when he spits out ridiculous anecdotes about outbreaks in downstate Illinois, when he spews voodoo science that has no relevance to the actual heath and safety of playing the sport, I’ll tell you what he’s really saying.
F U Trump.
And indirectly, F U kids of Illinois.