If MTV thought the promise of a Sunday night Trump-Hate-Athon (which we all knew was coming) would draw eyeballs, the leftwing music network was sadly mistaken. In fact, the promise of such a hyper-politicized spectacle appears to have turned people away in droves. Simply put, the final ratings are not only a disaster, they hit an all-time low. In a country filled with some 330 million people, around 42 million of them aged between 10 and 19, MTV’s biggest night of the year was able to attract only 5.4 million viewers.

Some in the leftwing media, like the fake news factory we call the Washington Post, are trying to blame HBO’s Game of Thrones — which attracted some 17 million viewers — for MTV’s humiliation (no, really). Granted, I attended public schools so you might want to re-check it, but according to my math, even with 17 million watching HBO, that leaves more than 300 million Americans and 25 million teenagers available to tune into MTV.

And they did not.

Over at the Daily Wire, James Barrett makes the additional point that the Game of Thrones excuse can’t explain “the consistency of the downward trend MTV is seeing,” and that downward trend is an awards show that attracted 10.3 million viewers just three years ago and now attracts about half that. This phenomenon is what Albert Einstein once described as “the trajectory of the epic fail.”

This is not science. No one needs a slide rule to figure what is going on here. MTV sucks. MTV has sucked for years. Today’s music sucks. Today’s performers suck. It is all a giant ball of suck desperate to cover up that suck with perversion and obnoxious politics.

MTV just doesn’t matter anymore, and has not in a very long time, and the music industry is dead.

As a child of the 80’s, we tuned into the VMAs because it was the vanguard. Michael Jackson’s moves. Madonna’s sexy sexuality. MTV challenged the establishment and the status quo. MTV stuck its finger in the eye of the censors and the scolds. Today, MTV is the establishment, is the church lady censoring, lecturing and scolding us over everything from language to beliefs.

MTV used to be about freedom, individualism, sticking it to The Man.

Today, MTV is about leftwing conformity, about creating a colorless Borg of mindless social justice warriors.

In other words, MTV is just no fun anymore.

Worse, it’s not even sexy.

Lady Gaga… Are you kidding me?

Miley Cyrus isn’t sexy; she acts like a sexist frat boy and has the body of a 14 year-old boy.

And for some godforsaken reason, this year’s VMA host Katy Perry decided to turn herself into Miley Cyrus.

So, no, it was not HBO that killed the video show, it was the fact that teenagers are not dumb and have no desire to watch three talentless hours of mediocre music mixed with propaganda demanding everyone conform into something “correct.”

Not to belabor the point, but music and MTV used to be about sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, skipping school, and throwing devil horns at the squares. Hell, yes! Even so, back then no one demanded you have sex, use drugs or listen to rock n’ roll, because what the music was really about was individual freedom, enjoying your youth, joy, fun, freedom, finding your own way, being whoever you wanted to be.

Today’s music and MTV are a buzzkill, are all about guilting you, telling you who you are supposed to be and what you are supposed to believe…

[The rapper] Logic took the stage to give a voice to the mental health movement, Kendrick Lamar, a powerful force for championing racial politics, performed and won the biggest award of the night, and Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer’s mother delivered a speech about fighting for social justice. … Throughout the show, Katy made several Trump-related comments, including announcing to the audience that “this [show] is one election where the popular vote actually matters.” She also insinuated that the “world is on fire,” and that we’re all inching closer and closer to a world looking like The Handmaid’s Tale.

Social justice?

Mental health?

The world is on fire?

Kill me now.

Why not just send the kids to church for three hours? At least the music won’t suck.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.