“The First and Second Amendments guarantee freedom of speech and the right to bear arms,” reads a petition circulated by Elon Musk’s America PAC. “By signing below, I am pledging my support for the First and Second Amendments.”

While pledging support for key elements of the US Constitution might seem non-controversial to most, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner took Musk to court over the petition, claiming that awarding prizes of $1 million to randomly selected signers who are also registered voters constitutes an “illegal lottery scheme to influence voters.”

A judge put Krasner’s case on hold, on Halloween, when Musk’s attorneys attempted to move the matter to federal court. We’re probably not going to see any real movement on the legal aspects until after the election.

It’s true that Elon Musk supports a particular presidential candidate (Donald Trump).

It’s true that Musk’s PAC has been doing “ground game” canvassing work on behalf of Trump’s campaign in Pennsylvania and other swing states.

It’s clear that Musk hopes the giveaway and the attention it draws will help Trump.

But, let’s be clear here:

The million dollar prizes aren’t contingent on the recipient voting for Trump — or for that matter, voting at all.

The petition signature required for entry doesn’t mention Trump, It doesn’t mention the presidential election. It doesn’t even mention voting.

The process for entering the drawing, and potentially winning a prize, is a lot more like a “sweepstakes” than a “lottery.”

A lottery or raffle generally involves a material consideration: The participant must purchase something to have a chance of winning.

A sweepstakes only requires the participant to provide some information (mostly for determining eligibility, delivering prizes to the correct addresses, and facilitating future contact).

Yes, in THIS case, that information includes a pledge that participants support the First and Second Amendments. But there’s no deliverable consideration. No vote. No donation. No shift as a campaign door-knocker.

If I give lifetime supplies of ice cream to random members of a group who sign statements saying they like ice cream, am I running a lottery? They’re free to lie. I’m not making them buy, or eat, ice cream. I’m just giving away money to people who say they like ice cream.

If Musk’s scheme is an “illegal lottery,” so is every voter registration drive and “get out the vote” event that hands out random merch.

Krasner clearly doesn’t support the First Amendment.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Although more than 50 million Americans have already voted — by mail or in person — “Election Day” formally falls on November 5. The candidates are making their “final arguments” in the media, pulling all stops out of their efforts to get supporters to the polls, and holding big events to enthuse those voters.

So, how’s that going for them?

Last Friday, about 30,000 people turned out for Kamala Harris’s rally in Houston Texas.

Last Saturday, about 20,000 attended Donald Trump’s campaign event at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Last Friday, about 65,000 fans packed the Superdome in New Orleans to watch Taylor Swift perform. And paid through the nose to do so.

Last Sunday, about 62,000 football enthusiasts shelled out big bucks to watch Swift’s beau, Travis Kelce, score his first touchdown of the season as the Kansas City Chiefs — the only as yet undefeated team in the National Football League  — take down the Raiders, 27-20 at Las Vegas’s Allegiant Stadium (yay Chiefs Kingdom!).

Each of those high-priced events drew more in-person attendees than the “free” events of Harris and Trump … combined.

Oh, and over the weekend, the third film in Marvel’s Venom franchise opened with a “disappointing” $51 million in US ticket sales. At an average ticket price of $12 or so, that means 85 times as many Americans decided they’d like to spend a couple of hours with Tom Hardy than with Trump or Harris.

Media coverage of presidential campaigns makes them out to be the most important things going on, 24/7, for months on end.

Americans obviously disagree. They’d rather take in a concert, a sports event, or a movie than attend a campaign event.

I suspect many of them would rather mow the lawn, or do laundry,  too.

And who can blame them? To pull out an old saw I’ve quoted before, politics is Hollywood for ugly people … and for ugliness in general.

Every presidential campaign is a big bad trip of dueling ideological and moral accusations, all of them disgusting, many true.

We’d all be better off if we could safely ignore it in favor of almost anything else.

Unfortunately, it refuses to ignore us.

Whoever wins the presidency, we’ll all be worse off going forward than we would be if the White House was demolished, its occupants put to flight, and salt sown in the earth where it once stood.

But at least we’ll have entertainment to distract us from the inevitable carnage, right?

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In late October, the Los Angeles Times published its list of candidate/issue endorsements for this year’s general election. Missing from the list: Any endorsement for president. Semafor reports that the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, nixed the Times editorial board’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump.

A few days later, the Washington Post similarly announced that it won’t endorse for president this year or “in any future presidential election.” Once again, NBC News reports, that decision was made by Post owner Jeff Bezos, who vetoed the editorial board’s planned endorsement of Harris.

The stories drew applause from some media critics — unsurprisingly, mostly those associated with the Republican Party — for a supposed move toward “neutrality,” or even “objectivity” (those two words do not mean the same thing) by the Times and Post.

Those same stories, of course, drew condemnation from other media critics — unsurprisingly, mostly those associated with the Democratic Party — over their faux silence in the face of e.g. Trump as “existential threat to democracy.”

Let’s get that “neutrality” and “objectivity” nonsense out of the way first.

American news media are not and never have been “neutral.” Neutrality means taking no side in a conflict. American media —  newspapers in particular — have a long history of identifying with political parties and endorsing those parties’ candidates in elections.

In fact, many newspapers once bore the stamp of their party affiliations in their names (I grew up with the Lebanon, Missouri Daily Record, previously the Rustic Republican) and others still do (for example, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette). They weren’t “neutral.” They took sides.

In the 20th century, under the influence of journalists like Walter Lippmann, journalism began portraying itself as “objective.” While many (including far too many journalists) treat that as a synonym for “neutrality,”  it isn’t. Objectivity means accurately representing reality.

Reality, objectively reported, often implies a better or worse side.

Reality, neutrally reported, just reports the sides and refuses to take one.

In reality, most news media are neither neutral nor objective. Their reportage is biased, just more subtly than openly.

Most journalistic outlets use the more attractive-sounding term for the side they support and the less attractive-sounding term for the side they oppose. Even if a story is accurate in its factual statements, it’s written to make one side sound like the good guys and the other side sound like the bad guys.

Quick example: Pro-choice and pro-life versus pro-abortion and anti-abortion.

Or look at reporting on the war in Gaza. Supporters of one side or the other will mix and match words like “self-defense,” “resistance,”  “terrorism,” and “genocide” to make precisely the same actions sound better or worse depending on which side takes those actions.

We know which candidate the editorial boards of the Times and Post prefer — and which candidate the owners of those newspapers prefer. Silence on both isn’t “neutrality” or “objectivity,” it’s just one preference vetoing the other.

We’d all be better informed if media just went back to wearing their biases on their sleeves.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY