The world watched breathlessly as Rudy Giuliani presented evidence of Elections Maladministration to the Pennsylvania Legislature. The year was 2020, and the November elections had just ended. Giuliani and a collection of high profile lawyers had dug through massive amounts of data and were presenting the elections issues to Pennsylvania’s Statehouse and the world.
And then his hair dye ran.
That was enough. People became needlessly distracted by the man’s efforts to cover up for thinning hair.
Years earlier, in another example of human inanity, a Republican candidate was tanked by legacy news media because of the appearance of his jeans. Apparently, the jeans weren’t fashionable enough.
Flash forward to 2024 and people were reacting violently to the type of car being driven by political or business figures. Instead of trillions of dollars of alleged taxpayer abuse via non-profits and non-governmental organizations, the focus became the battery powered cars represented by Elon Musk, who’d uncovered the alleged fraud.
The list of such distractions is seemingly endless.
It’s up to us Reasoned, Critical Thinking people to insist upon focus on matters that are important, as difficult as that may be for some.
Once you see the trend, you cannot un-see it: the moment some major issue comes to light or a politician presents themselves as something other than status-quo, media and social media begin to buzz with some inane commentary. I half-jokingly refer to it all as Kardashian’s Lip Gloss (I’ve never been interested in the Kardashian family but recognize that for some years virtually everything they did fascinated society. In this setting, I can easily imagine some major newsworthy event but then all of society shifting focus to talk about a Kardashian’s lip gloss shade).
It’s entirely true that those of us who bother to learn about the issues of the day often struggle to capture the attention of large groups of people. The busyness of life and distractions of more entertaining things can be hard to overcome. When someone like me is ringing an alarm bell - “Hey, everybody, some really bad people have bad plans for your neighborhood, you should know!” can sometimes miss the mark if a local sports team is in a playoff race or some other event is happening.
But sometimes the distraction is so breathtakingly petty and irrelevant as to make one pause and scratch our heads.
In the balance of things, I’d rather care about Election Integrity than Rudy Giuliani’s hair dye. And I’d rather have a good President who wears unfashionable jeans than a bad alternative.
In the latest example of this - admittedly much smaller than the status of U.S. elections or POTUS - we have T-shirts in Geauga County.
If you’re not in Geauga County, don’t tune out just yet, because this sort of thing likely happens near you too. Learn to recognize and counter the pretend-narrative.
We have major issues in Geauga County. There is a lot of money… or, it may be fairer to say that a lot of money moves through Geauga County. Generally, the county is viewed as sleepy, rural, and “conservative Republican”. This has been a recipe for disaster for many decades - big money with scant few competent souls watching over.
A lack of attention based upon the false notion of “conservative Republican” Geauga County has led to mass sums of money evaporating and nearly endless government expansion and bloat (the reasons for this are complex but can be boiled down to one underlying theme: long ago, far-Left Democrats figured out that they couldn’t win in Geauga, so they determined to spend lots of money buying favor with the Republican Party (or individuals within it) in order to obtain an “R” next to their name on a ballot and run as Republicans. This is an open secretin many places. Eventually, this blurring of lines led to there frequently being no clear distinction between candidates; a result we now call the “Uniparty.”)
Yet, a concerted effort is underway to stop Geauga’s slide.
I’ve personally adopted the expression, “Don’t Cuyahoga Our Geauga!” which is a recognition of the levels of corruption that have all but bled neighboring Cuyahoga County dry (Cleveland is in Cuyahoga County, for geographical reference).
In sleepy, rural “conservative Republican” Geauga County all sorts of money-scheme plans are being cooked up to force farmers off their lands, continue to increase local taxes, diminish services, add high-density housing, and otherwise sell off and control people’s lives, all in pursuit of profits.
There are many great examples of Geauga residents rallying to block things they don’t like, such as recent (and current) efforts in Chesterland to block high-density housing that was crafted by developers, presumably in order to make a few people rich and the community miserable. Each and every one of these organized community efforts that thwart bad intentions should be applauded.
But what about politics?
This is where the T-shirts come in.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Steve Oluic (pronounced O - lew - itch) is running for County Commissioner. His platform is cleaning up some of the horrible messes.
Citing government infighting and squandering of resources as the main reasons for running for election, Oluic will challenge Geauga County Commissioner Jim Dvorak for his seat in the Nov. 3, 2026, general election, according to a May 14 press release. (source: https://www.geaugamapleleaf.com/news/oluic-announces-2026-commissioner-campaign/)
I’ve heard him speak several times and am hopeful. He seems to have the background and wherewithal to take on some of the major issues that hide in plain sight in Geauga.
Good, right? Not so fast…
Geauga’s Left, comprised of all sorts of people clamoring to hold onto status-quo, are not at all interested in Mr. Oluic’s Army Corps of Engineers background, his Doctorate, leadership, or capabilities, they’re fascinated by T-shirts. Not quietly, either. They’re VERY loudly fascinated by (and are now openly lying about) campaign T-shirts, of all things.
Remember, again, that this post isn’t entirely about Geauga County, the upcoming Commissioner’s race, or campaign T-shirts, it’s about recognizing that when status-quo Left have nothing else to talk about, when they feel threatened, they’ll pivot to some sort of trivial nonsense.
I’ll pause here to share some images that were shared with me of Mr. Oluic’s campaign T-shirts.
Pretty standard fair, right? Not so fast. It seems that some knock-off T-shirts were made for a few of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) group that had “B*tch” on them - the letter “i” is replaced with an asterisk.
At a recent kid-friendly event, someone superimposed the notion that the knock-off shirts are the campaign shirts and that children may have been exposed to them. This is untrue and the people who were there have spent weeks refuting and clarifying the issue, to no avail.
Letters to the Editor, ginned up social media outrage over “B*tch” seem to be all anyone can talk about.
Kardashian’s lip gloss… Guiliani’s hair dye… jeans… the car someone drives…
Recently, an alleged $6,000,000 surplus disappeared in Geauga. Poof, it evaporated. And people want to talk about T-shirts.
My tolerance for distracting non-conversation, personally, is something less than zero. No T-shirt slogan is going to reverse the trend of taxing and fee-ing people out of their homes or crushing their liberties and rights.
I join the calls for a debate between Steve Oluic and current incumbent Jim Dvorak. When and if they do, I can assure everyone, I’ll not care one tiny bit what shirts they wear.
- Jonathan Broadbent
Concerned Resident of Geauga County