By GORDON GLANTZ

GORDONVILLE – Starved for some cerebral sustenance, I found a show on Hulu called “The Food That Built America” that wove American history with the stories of the innovators that brought much of what we take for granted today – Coke, ketchup, chocolate, cereal, KFC, McDonald’s, etc. – into what we eat without a second thought.

As fascinating as it was, I almost didn’t get beyond the first 5-10 minutes because I was nearly nauseated watching how rancid meat was sold on the streets of yore, causing all sorts of disease.

The thing with red meat is that when it no longer stays red once it goes bad. Instead, it turns this grotesque green or greenish brown, and develops a smell that almost hit me through the television screen.

I couldn’t help but think of this when the entity that calls itself your president (not mine) defied the medical experts and attempted to hold one of his Hitleresque rallies in Tulsa.

The state of Oklahoma is one of those seeing a rise in COVID-19 cases, but the plans went forward. The rally was originally slated for the same day Juneteenth, and in the city where a massacre of a black neighborhood took place in 1921.

Moved back a whole day (eye roll), with all the arrogance your president (not mine) can muster, the rally went forward.

But the steady diet of red meat thrown the crowd, the size of which fell short of predictions, was more of the spoiled variety.

It was no longer red, and it aroma made normal person sick to his or her stomach.

Moreover, the sparse crowd was asked to wash it down with water that would make that of Flint, Michigan taste like Poland Spring.

There was no mention of the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a policeman in Minneapolis. The media was blamed for the lower-than-expected turnout, as were left-wing “radicals” in the streets (so-called far-right nutsies were out there, too, but didn’t seem to have the cojones to do more than tote their weaponry and flex).

Inside, the blame game was played. The me-first diatribe included blaming the surge in COVID-19 cases, oddly happening in mostly red states, on … too much testing.

Acting like a third-grader on the short bus, your president (not mine) referred to the scourge that has already claimed more than 100,000 American lives as “Kung Flu” (yes, it started China, but there was time to prepare).

The red meat gone bad came in such gems as suggesting a one-year prison sentence for burning the American flag, which means it is seen as an act of treachery.

Oddly, your president (not mine) offered a contradictory stance on taking down statues of Confederate generals – or changing the names of Military bases named for them – as those generals. Those were all traitors as well, and took it one step beyond burning the flag, as they raised one of their own in battle and your president (not mine) sees no problem with these flags still being some sort of twisted part of American heritage.

Maybe there is sentimentality here. Maybe your president (not mine) was stationed at Fort Benedict Arnold. Never mind. Never got that far. Pres. Fake Bone Spurs never served anywhere, a fact that seems lost on his sycophants.

While the kickoff to his campaign was a kick in his ass, let’s stay measured here.

While it is all encouraging, I can’t get too excited about it.

We’ve dug this grave before, but no corpse was in the coffin.

The media, the same media that was guilty in the way the 2016 election went down by readily supplying more free coverage than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders combined. It was likely because it was seen as a detour from sanity – as a mere 15 minutes of national shame – and they wanted to be there to record every hateful word that was uttered for posterity.

What was underestimated was how a good portion of white America feeds on the steady diet of red meat being served.

Resentment built at the election of Barack Obama in 2008 – revealing itself in a drastic rise in militia groups, the Tea Party and the Birther movement that your president (not mine) bankrolled – and exploded like an atom bomb.

We are still dealing with the fallout, with the nuclear winter.

And followers are left with no other option but to consume grotesque food and poison themselves.

Sad.