DONALD TRUMP RETURNS IN RED AND LEAVES AMERICA IN ANOTHER POLARIZED INFERNO
The same contentious motto crackles — “Make America Great Again” — and Trump’s autonomy will extend in directions including JD Vance, Elon Musk, Dana White, the Senate … and who knows what else?
In his rebirth as President of the United States, while dismissing Kamala Harris as a Dodgers fan and Tim Walz as a football coach, Donald Trump is either a dreary goon or a clockwork warrior. America is doomed? America is saved? However you see it, a nation wasn’t prepared in a voting crunch Tuesday to elect a Black woman and a vice president for Joe Biden.
The polarization doesn’t end. Trump takes over, the lawsuits continue, and he laughs with his supporters. Angry people will continue to dominate our lives. Older males will be despised. The woke will shriek. Are we better off? Are we worse off? Will immigration settle? Will the economy improve? Will the media run and hide?
He will appeal to his people in collar regions until January 2029, unless someone else has evil plans as seen in Butler, Pa. He will turn to the world’s richest human, Elon Musk, and ride his relationships with Vladimir Putin and China. Where are we headed? Bedlam? Weird prosperity? As he wears his “Make America Great Again” cap?
“This was a movement like no one has seen before. This was the greatest political movement of all time,” Trump said in a red-toned convention center in West Palm Beach, Fla., where “God Bless the USA” played to roars. “Now it’s going to reach a new level of importance. We’re going to help our country heal. This country needs help. We’re going to fix everything about this country.”
The world was watching, with an ample number of votes in what became a one-night journey. “Every single day, I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body. This will truly be the golden age of America,” Trump said. “We’ve achieved the most incredible political thing. This will allow us to make America great again.”
Nearing 3 a.m. in the East, Trump told a story about Musk’s wizardry. “Can Russia do it? Can China do it?” he said, with Musk responding, “No. Nobody else.”
“That’s why I love you, Elon,” Trump said. “He’s a character, a super-genius. We have to protect our super-geniuses. We don’t have that many of them.”
He called out golfer Bryson DeChambeau, of all people, who wasn’t on stage. “Great U.S. Open, Bryson,” Trump said.
Next came Dana White, the CEO and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. It didn’t take Trump long to surround himself with sports people. “He came to me. It’s a rough sport,” Trump said. “I began to like it. No one has done a better job at sports. It’s become one of the most successful sports anywhere.”
Said White: “Nobody deserves this more than him and nobody deserves this more than his family. This is what happens when the machine comes out. This is karma, ladies and gentlemen.”
He will make journeys and pass along thanks. Trump can start in Indiana, I suppose, a state he won early and with authority. After all, he is Robert Montgomery Knight — isn’t he? — and he’ll proceed as the 47th man in charge with the same mindset of thought and substance. It was Knight who said, “I think if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” The former president and next president did not say it.
Trump is a sportsman as much as a politician. Why did White join him in chats with Musk at the Mar-a-Lago Club as results poured in? When we examine his future, we remember Jon Bon Jovi’s opposition as one reason he ran for office, instead of gaining entrenchment as owner of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. Are we headed to another UFC rumble in Washington? A new version of the “White” House? Will Herschel Walker, the former running back, take over responsibility for a new missile defense shield? Apparently he will, though he messed up Trump’s name twice.
“It is time for it to stop, and it stops on Tuesday when we vote for my friend, and your friend, Donald Trump Jr. — Donald Trump. Jonald J. Trump,” Walker said.
Said Trump: “We will build a missile defense shield all made in the USA and put Herschel Walker in charge of that little sucker.”
What will Trump say if athletes resume kneeling on sidelines in protest? As Colin Kaepernick created a crusade during national anthems, the President said, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’ You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s going to say, ‘That guy that disrespects our flag, he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it, (but) they’ll be the most popular person in this country.” Trump forced the league to place objectors in the locker room and, in his time, allowed commissioner Roger Goodell to regain footing and turn the industry into a massive broadcast bonanza.
Streaming cuts cables. Yet Trump carries on as the presidential apprentice, at 78, while JD Vance begins to seek the presidency and Musk tries to rule the planet. The entertainment component cannot keep up with sports — Oscars, Grammys — and the NFL is a monstrous live phenomenon at $125.5 billion in media contracts. The NBA is counting a new $76 billion package.
For now, during the jagged weeks between Election Day and Inauguration Day, Trump might discover Indiana cares more about college football than the U.S. presidency. Who knows about a freakish cultural turnaround? At this stage, the 9-0 Hoosiers rank eighth in the 12-team playoff rankings when they’ve suffered 713 all-time losses — the most ever in Division I. “I win. Google me,” said the head coach, Curt Cignetti, the most lovable man in the sport.
Now, here is Trump’s first external scream-a-thon. Why is Cignetti’s team ranked below Brigham Young among seeds — as are Texas, Penn State and Tennessee, any of whom might blow out a program named for the second president of the Mormon church? Welcome to the first controversy of what generally is welcome ground in sports, a $7.8 billion deal with ESPN that expands the postseason through 2031-32. Should we rethink the format when it allows the ninth-ranked team to vault into the No. 4 berth and gain a first-round bye in the tournament?BYWhoWhatWhenWhereWhy?
Because Brigham Young is considered the likely winner of the Big 12, the Cougars are among four preordained conference champions due to receive an idle first week. We have no problem with Oregon, Georgia and Miami in the other lead spots. Ohio State is ranked second after losing to the Ducks. BYU? This is foolhardy when schedules and talent are compared to teams ranked below them in the SEC and Big 10, four of whom would play on campus in the opening round. Say bye-bye to the bye.
Why would anyone allow the Big 12, shaky in the SEC and Big 10 fusillade, to have such a say in the important matter of who gets time off before the quarterfinals on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1? This can become Donald Trump’s sideshow until Jan. 20, when he takes office and the national championship game is staged. Biden watched sports because of his wife. Trump makes sports a good portion of his life.
He reclaims dominance. He’ll do what he wants with loyalists in the U.S. Senate. Men voted for him. Women voted for him. Old people voted for him. Young people voted for him.
And for some reason, DeChambeau showed up with White for the celebration. If Musk shoots off a nuclear bomb, will Donald Trump ask the super-genius if he’s killing us all?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.