Donald Trump doesn’t care about the National Anthem. He doesn’t care about the flag. The man who railed against Gold Star families, sneered at Prisoners of War, and developed the world’s most convenient set of bone spurs doesn’t give one damn about the red, white and blue—he prefers gold. What’s really driving Trump’s rally speech, press event, and 15 tweet (and counting) attack on NFL protesters is something else entirely.
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There was an age—and it feels like generations ago, but really it was early 2014—when Donald J. Trump was thought to be all talk—and with good reason. Perpetually he threatened to bring his showy, bulldozing style somewhere it wasn’t especially welcome. Time and time again, though, something would come up and intervene.
But this time it was for real. No more false starts. Advisor Michael Cohen told the papers, “There’s nobody more serious than Donald Trump.” He was, after years of hoopla, going to follow through. He was finally going to ... bid for the Buffalo Bills.
In the list of things that concern Donald Trump, national pride is somewhere a million items down. Above that comes every perceived slight in his life. Trump went on to make a claim that he bid a billion dollars for the Bills. Which may or may not be true. What’s certain is that he lost out to Terry Pegula, a beneficiary of the natural gas fracking boom who had the advantage of being able to produce actual cash and not just an IOU from an oligarch. Trump was left with the same solace then that he has now—complaining about it on Twitter:
And, of course, this wasn’t the only time the NFL embarrassed Trump. There was also the wonderfully awful case of the USFL and the New Jersey Generals.
Trump’s football adventure began in 1984, when he bought the New Jersey Generals, part of the then-new United States Football League. The USFL, as chronicled in an excellent installment of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, was envisioned by founder David Dixon as a complement to the National Football League that would play in the spring, leaving fall to the NFL. For its first three years, the strategy seemed successful.
But it wasn't enough for Trump. He pushed hard to shift the USFL to a fall schedule, where the USFL – with less talent and less public awareness – would go head-to-head with the bigger league.
The decision to switch to fall play immediately crippled several USFL teams, who wouldn’t be able to compete directly with local NFL teams. The league even turned down a lifeline in the form of lucrative TV offers to broadcast spring games.
Donald Trump didn’t just wreck his whole team. Trump’s “leadership” destroyed an entire league, one that might have survived were it not from Trump’s asinine effort to push the league into competing with better-funded, better-known competitors. By making teams go heads-up for viewers, Trump annihilated revenue streams—and also dropped an inferior product into viewers’ living rooms where it could be seen side-by-side with the Grade A material.
Trump’s plan was typically audacious and risky. Rather than organically grow a new league, he hoped to force an immediate merger with the NFL, which would provide huge returns for surviving USFL team owners.
To make this long-shot happen, Trump did what Trump loves to do—he sued. The USFL took the NFL to court claiming they were an illegal monopoly. A monopoly that should be … required to take in more teams so they too could be part of the monopoly. If the suit sounds ridiculous, the courts agreed. There was no merger. The USFL died and the New Jersey Generals joined Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks, and Trump Water in the ranks of things Trump drove into the ground.
But now … now Trump can bring down sweet revenge on everyone who ever failed to think he was the greatest thing since bread (sliced or unsliced). Plus, there’s a bonus:
When your “cultural war” starts with an opening act of “Let’s all hate on a woman who is intelligent, successful, and powerful” following up with “Now, let’s get the successful blacks” suggests that there’s something desperately ugly about the “culture” involved.