5 minute read
OPINION
We need a shark
by Paul Moomjean paulmoomjean@yahoo.com
Watching the current state of government leadership has been horrifying, to say the least. Whether it’s President Donald Trump trying to play catch up during the COVID-19 pandemic or likely Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden stumbling through early signs of dementia on every news network from his house, the future is not in the hands of the willing or the capable. Sadly, with only two men able to be president, due to our nominating system, one man no longer seems to want to be the president, and the other has forgotten he’s running.
Throughout our nation’s short history, a third-party candidate has never really been an option, but in a post-COVID-19 world, the rules have been thrown out. Now is the time for a real American Dream product to step up and lead. So, when I heard Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank billionaire Mark Cuban was thinking about it, I leaped with joy at the thought of one of the good guys finally putting their skills to help America.
Cuban is one of the most recognizable people in the world. He’s his own brand that includes being a billionaire who is famous for helping middle-class Americans on Shark Tank make their entrepreneur dreams come true. If Trump was the “You’re fired!” president, then Mark Cuban would be the “You’re hired!” president.
What makes him qualified is that he’s literally been at the forefront of every major movement in America’s past 30 years. He was a part of the dot-com era, where he became a billionaire. His current net worth sits at $4.3 billion. He understands the media. He gets what middle-class Americans deal with on a daily basis. As Rudyard Kipling wrote in the poem “If,” Cuban lives the line: “… If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch…”
In a recent interview, when asked about running for president, Cuban was coy, stating, “If this would’ve been a month ago, I would have said absolutely not. But obviously things are crazy, things are changing. So I’ll keep an open mind. But I seriously doubt it.”
He shouldn’t, though, which is why he backtracked immediately. “But everything’s a reset right now. You never say never. It’s always plausible, it’s definitely doable. It’s just a question of should you do it?”
Being the president of the United States would not be a fun job. It is the ultimate act of service to one’s country, if done correctly, and one must have a vision.
And that is what makes the current crop of 2020 candidates so horrifying. Trump and Biden both lack clear visions. Neither seem to be able to address the problems at hand clearly. Cuban, on the other hand, was very direct with the company 3M, who manufactures surgical masks. It did not do an efficient job of distributing the much-needed face masks, and only Cuban was putting its feet to the fire, calling the company to the floor.
“They’ve been silent. Every single healthcare provider and all of America has really been stressed because all we’ve been hearing about is the shortage of surgical masks. Yet so many people including me, including you, including the feds — they’re getting offers of millions and millions of surgical masks at these crazy prices,” Cuban told Fox & Friends.
Cuban went on to say, “And then those people who were reselling them were then price gouging. We’ve gotten to a point now where I think [New York] Governor [Andrew] Cuomo was saying they were paying $7 a mask rather than the 85 cents a mask they were paying prior to this. Somebody is price gouging in a national emergency — that’s criminal.”
In the past month, politicians have been silent in calling a spade a spade. Mostly, because they’ve been bought and can’t speak out. That’s why we need Mark Cuban right now. We don’t need a guppy. We need a shark.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Nancy D. Lackey Shaffer STAFF WRITER Kimberly Rivers CONTRIBUTORS Michael Cervin, David Michael Courtland, Ivor Davis, Emily Dodi, Alicia Doyle, Dane Edmondson, Chuck Graham, Chris Jay, Daphne Khalida Kilea, Karen Lindell, Paul Moomjean, Mike Nelson, Tim Pompey, Emily Savage, Kathy Jean Schultz, Alan Sculley, Kit Stolz, Mark Storer, Alex Wilson, Leslie A. Westbrook, Kateri Wozny GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Bret Hooper, Victoria Linares, Shannon Mead, Tonya Mildenberg SALES TEAM LEADER Warren Barrett ADVERTISING SALES Jon Cabreros, Barbara Kroon RECEPTION/LEGALS Tori Behar
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