United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is promoting how he has spent parts of the past seven months filming a reality TV series with his family, to showcase how great America is.
In this post:
Sean Duffy’s seven-month road trip project
Sean Duffy has released the trailer for the “Great American Road Trip,” whereby he took his family on a trip across the United States, to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday. The narrative is that “to love America is to see America,” so the idea is that Duffy, his wife, and some of their nine children, went on a road trip across the country.
The trailer for the series can be seen below, and the five-part series should be released in the coming weeks.
On his official Transportation Secretary account, Duffy talks about how “for decades our kids have been told they should be ashamed of our country & founders,” and that “it’s time to push back on those Marxist narratives,” and that “one way to do that is to “hit the road and SHOW them our beautiful country & historic sites.”
Of course Duffy is no stranger to TV, since Duffy and his wife even met on a reality TV show (specifically, MTV’s “Road Rules: All Stars”). And the president is no stranger to reality TV either, so was clearly enthusiastic about the concept.
In terms of optics, this might not be the best time to promote an American road trip, given the increase in gas prices in recent months, which have made such a trip significantly more expensive for many.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took to social media to chime in on this concept, writing that “I love a good road trip, but this is brutally out of touch: a Trump Cabinet member making a documentary about himself while regular families can’t afford road trips anymore, because Trump and his war put gas prices through the roof.”
Are taxpayers paying for this road trip series?
Many people are (understandably) asking who is funding this series, and whether taxpayers are on the hook for this. It’s a fair question, with one former Department of Transportation (DOT) staffer writing “using taxpayer dollars and federal staff resources to produce what is essentially a reality TV show for a Cabinet Secretary is a gross misuse of public resources.”
In fairness to Duffy, it appears this might’ve actually been funded by private parties. When you go to the website for the concept (thanks to View from the Wing for flagging this), you’ll see a list of “sponsors powering America’s road trip.” As you can see, there are a variety of sponsors.
It’s logical to see Toyota and Shell sponsoring, while it’s a bit funnier to see Boeing and United sponsoring. Now, even with this being privately funded, this does seem to present a general conflict of interest, not that this is anything new. Should companies in the transportation sector really be making donations to a personal venture of the person who regulates the transportation industry?
It still seems like United CEO Scott Kirby has failed to get his return on investment on the company’s donations to Trump’s team, between this and the $1 million donated for Trump’s inauguration. Was it really just a merger with American that Kirby had in mind all along? He’s not going to use that goodwill (and impeccable timing) to take over JetBlue?
Bottom line
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has launched a new series, which was filmed over seven months. It’s called the “Great American Road Trip,” and the idea is that it’s supposed to show off America’s beauty. The United States definitely has a lot of pretty sights, and there’s a lot to explore and see.
As you’d expect, the concept isn’t being well received by all, in terms of him doing this while in office, concerns over the way this is being funded, plus the poor timing in terms of the state of gas prices.
What do you make of Duffy’s “Great American Road Trip?”
Simply more performative distracting crap, for the functionally illiterate, pedophile loving buffoons whose entire identities revolve around flag-waving.
More partisan propaganda.
Sheez, spare me from this mental moron.
In all of my schooling were we never taught about an end game of communism, what this mentally deficient cabinet member is spouting. That is the goal of Marxism and I don’t know a single one of my far left leaning friends clamoring for this.
One is taught to question and it is totally legitimate to question the state of the nation. This strengthens our core...
Sheez, spare me from this mental moron.
In all of my schooling were we never taught about an end game of communism, what this mentally deficient cabinet member is spouting. That is the goal of Marxism and I don’t know a single one of my far left leaning friends clamoring for this.
One is taught to question and it is totally legitimate to question the state of the nation. This strengthens our core democratic values. Oh wait. Of course this administration wants to further slash educational and social spending to enrich themselves and how better to do it than keeping the masses stupid. Yeah, I’m looking at you MAGA Cult.
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with a social democratic economy. This has nothing to do with communism nor does it mirror the parroting of this fascist right wing administration.
Too bad this administration and the MAGA Cult Faux News watching followers didn’t learn anything in their civics classes.
It is truly saddening to see all the collective lessons the world learned after WWII go forgotten and erased. But what can one expect from a draft dodging pseudo warrior in the White House.
“Private donors” paying for this just like they supposedly are (or were) for the tacky A ballroom.
Lucky could have also posted a picture of the "Great American" road experience which is I-635 as the cover for this article.
The founders of the National Parks and the National Parks Service itself have all had their statues torn down by Communists in one place or another.
I very much doubt you could define communism and I dare you to name the specific "communists" and the specific statues in specific national parks that were torn down. Your MAGA delusions would be hillarious if they were not so sad.
Stupid
I’d love to hear one of these chuds try to explain to me what Marxism actually is.
It's cute to see democrats pretending to care about lower gas prices. They spend their entire time in office blocking drilling, blocking pipelines, openly seeking to bankrupt energy companies through suffocating regulations. California has run refiners out of state and continues to try to block drilling, they happily buy from the middle east though. That's why their prices are the highest in the US, not the bad orange man. Besides, you have your green energy...
It's cute to see democrats pretending to care about lower gas prices. They spend their entire time in office blocking drilling, blocking pipelines, openly seeking to bankrupt energy companies through suffocating regulations. California has run refiners out of state and continues to try to block drilling, they happily buy from the middle east though. That's why their prices are the highest in the US, not the bad orange man. Besides, you have your green energy and your electric cars, what do you care? Climate change no longer an emergency? So disingenuous. Stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is worth a few months of economic impact.
Mantis is another very low IQ Republican mouth breather. Ignored the fact (or maybe he is just ignorant) that US domestic energy production reached a record high under Biden. SAD!
It's cute to see democrats pretending to care about lower gas prices. They spend their entire time in office blocking drilling, blocking pipelines, openly seeking to bankrupt energy companies through suffocating regulations. California has run refiners out of state and continues to try to block drilling, they happily buy from the middle east though. That's why their prices are the highest in the US, not the bad orange man. Besides, you have your green energy...
It's cute to see democrats pretending to care about lower gas prices. They spend their entire time in office blocking drilling, blocking pipelines, openly seeking to bankrupt energy companies through suffocating regulations. California has run refiners out of state and continues to try to block drilling, they happily buy from the middle east though. That's why their prices are the highest in the US, not the bad orange man. Besides, you have your green energy and your electric cars, what do you care? Climate change no longer an emergency? So disingenuous. Stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is worth a few months of economic impact.
Got so excited about your reality-denying comment you just had to post it twice?
Responding to the repeat comment as well. Mantis use your fat diabetes-addled sausage fingers and google JCPOA. Iran wasn’t able to developed a nuke until Your Boy pulled out of it. What a tremendous decision. MORONS OF A FEATHER.
Boeing’s sponsorship is meant to grease the wheels for 777X certification.
Is this the guy who’s wife f***ed Puck? Obviously they think reality TV worked so well for them they’re trying to expose their children to it too.
Yep. She's gonna be taking Valtrex for life.
Marxist? What Duffy and the DC twits regard as Marxist is something that Karl almost certainly wouldn't recognize. Groucho, maybe, but not Karl.
Great road adventure to promote! Yes America needs to get rid of the evil Marxist/Communist infiltration funded by the Chinese Communist Party through radical leftwing elements! This is very true and all Americans need to recognize this existential threat! Only ignorant, indoctrinated leftists would deny this, unfortunately.
Would you care to elaborate on what you mean exactly? I'm an ignorant indoctrinated leftist, so I'm unclear on what you're trying to save me from.
"This is very true"... If it were actually true, you wouldn't need to say so. But your post does offer a lot of MAGA talking points, so the leader will be happy with you.
This is one of the funniest strawmen arguments by the right I’ve ever seen. I’m very progressive and so are all of my friends. Literally not a single person has ever denigrated the US’ national parks lmao
I would argue that dems have done a lot more for the natural beauty of the US, especially because DOGE tried to destroy the NPS and BLM