Political Friends and Enemies

The Gantt Report

By Lucius Gantt

I would imagine that every newspaper you read and every internet news site you visit will be permeated with speculations and predictions about the “impeachment trial” of the Liar in Chief, President Donald J. Trump.

Well, The Gantt Report is not like other editorials, opinions, columns or news reports.

The President should be removed from office, forthwith! I’ll leave that right there.

I want to opine today about friends and enemies.

If you live long enough you will ultimately realize that some of your enemies will become friendly and some of your friends will become users, abusers, haters and enemies!

In the 40 or more years that The Gantt Report has been distributed and read in publications and internet posts all over the world, some people have liked the column and some folk have disliked The Gantt Report.

I, the editor of The Gantt Report, have been called mean, radical, provocative, controversial, militant, angry and a lot of other things.

However, Lucius Gantt has never been described as a liar. I, or my column, have never been sued for libel or slander.

There has been typos but The Gantt Report has never had a “Bulletin Kill”, a print media term that basically means an editorial, or news story, should be retracted immediately, removed from the news source and followed by an explanatory apology.

I said all of that to say this: there is good and bad in all of us, including the political devil!

Many of the politicians that you love and the political party that you love are current spending millions of dollars on media buys to influence voters in 2020 primary and general elections.

Al Sharpton, Joy Reid, Craig Melvin, Michael Eric Dyson, Rashad Richey, Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum and others are not talking about political activities that are very important for Black voters to compare and contrast. To me, they are parroting what they are told to say, told to believe and told to convey.

The great First Lady, Michelle Obama once said, “When they go low, we go high!”

So far, in the 2020 election cycle, the people that you have historically considered to be your benefactors, your supporters, your allies, your comforters, your comrades and your confidants have gone as low as a poor man’s bankroll while the despicable political devil has taken a step up.

I always try to keep Gantt Report readers aware of the facts. I don’t care about the spin and I don’t care about the narrative. I have never set out to write about what people like. I try to pen the truth, whether people like it or not.

The truth about what’s happening in the 2020 election cycle is one group of politicians is united hand-in-hand in asking Black voters, Black media outlets and Black political professionals to volunteer their political goods and services while they keep it a secret from you that their political opponents are doing more than they are.

Believe it or not, the campaign to reelect President Donald Trump has been buying full page ads in a number of highly circulated Black newspapers.

I’m not jumping with joy about the advertising message which talks about low unemployment, funding HBCUs and stuff like that.

But I do believe that all politicians and all political parties should respect Black voters, patronize Black businesses and they should demonstrate diversity in all phases of their campaigns, especially diversity in campaign purchasing transactions and expenditures.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask your community Black newspaper. If a full page ad is sold for $4000 that money could easily pay the monthly salary of one, or more, full time or part-time employees.

When money is generated for you or your business the money doesn’t care where it came from.

Why don’t the political pundits, political staffers and the so called “political hacks” that you love that are involved in 2020 races demand that candidates in your political party spend money to encourage and influence Black voters to vote the right way on Election Day?

TV, radio stations, social media companies and other media outlets make as much or more money off of political advertising than they do off of Christmas advertising.

I just wanted you to know what’s happening.

And, by the way, both major political parties have a story to advertise, so to speak, and I know the stories that both should tell but I won’t “volunteer” to write it in a column.

Like Tone Loc said some people need to get paid to say or do “The Wild Thing”!

Vote for the candidates that you feel are best for you, but don’t ever be shy or afraid to ask your candidate or political party to spend political dollars in your community.