At a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, last week, Richard Childress, owner of the eponymous NASCAR racing outfit, introduced former president Donald Trump as “one of the bravest and most courageous men I’ve ever met in my life”. To rapturous applause. When he took the podium Trump then embarked on a trademark bizarre tangent. Trying to please supporters gathered in the capital of the stock car racing world, he unveiled a suitably bonkers plan to use the denizens of the sport to revamp the country’s army.
“I’ve always said get some of these guys,” he said. “I have a lot of friends in that world. I don’t know. I think, isn’t Roger Penske, like, a great guy? The guy won 20 Indianapolis 500s. This guy [pointing to Childress] wins all the time. I mean, we appreciate talent. I said, ‘let me use these guys to guide our military a little bit.’ When you can win so many races, that’s OK, you know? You guide. Same thing with coaches. You take some of the greatest football coaches, you put them at the table. ‘What do you like, coach?’ Because in its own way it’s not so much really different.”
Suggesting that NASCAR legends or gridiron shot-callers replace or supplement generals, a demographic whom he distrusts and despises, scarcely caused a ripple across the American media. Trump’s every public utterance includes so much random insanity (check out the recurring Hannibal Lecter gags) that plenty of offensive drivel routinely slips through the cracks.
What appears obvious headline material early in an appearance often gets superseded by fresher lunacy so that by the end of any soliloquy the earlier madness is forgotten. Witness the Republican nominee delightedly telling Christians at the Faith & Freedom Coalition in June his audacious plans for improving UFC [Ultimate Fighting Championship]. A sentence there that captures an entire dystopian era.
“I said, ‘Dana [White], I have an idea: why don’t you set up a migrant league of fighters and have your regular league of fighters. And then you have the champion of your league – these are the greatest fighters in the world – fight the champion of the migrants.’ I think the migrants’ guy might win, that’s how tough they are. He didn’t like that idea too much, but actually it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
He later claimed that proposal, since given several airings, was made in jest. But whenever he trains his blunderbuss on any corner of the world of sport it’s difficult to decipher whether he’s deadly serious, merely trying to generate instant outrage, or just heading off on a senescent ramble. Every Trump speech is a murky, unsavoury stew of score-settling non-sequiturs, drive-by calumnies, and slanderous finger-pointing. To sift through a transcript of any of them is to wonder why, nearly a decade into this nauseating grift, he somehow remains a serious political force.
At St Cloud State University in Minnesota last month he delivered a typically demented screed, raving about Joe Biden as if he was still running, spewing outright lies about anybody who has ever crossed him, and stoking fear about migrants, the third World War (imminent if he’s not elected), and local congresswoman Ilhan Omar promoting jihad. In between labelling Kamala Harris a Marxist, comparing his popularity to Elvis Presley, and promising to build an Iron Dome over America’s skies, he also found time to boast that his ability to swing a driver matches his undoubted talent for tossing together word salads.
“Did you see I played golf with Bryson DeChambeau?” he asked, in the braggadocious manner of an insecure kid in the schoolyard. “Did anybody see it? Yeah? I played OK, won a lot of club championships, and I’m playing with him. First of all, he’s like 29-years-old. He hits the ball a mile, but I hit it far also. And we played very good, and it was a break 50 [challenge]. That means you have to get 13 birdies and 5 eagles. That’s very tough. The par 3s actually make it the toughest, right, for those of you that are golfers. But I played with him. He said, ‘I can’t believe how good you are’.”
While DeChambeau did his bit, Scottie Scheffler played Turnberry recently, part of the ongoing effort to get Trump’s Scottish course back into the R&A rotation for the British Open. Hardly surprising so many obsequious golfers remain in his thrall when there is, despite creeping Democratic overconfidence, every chance he returns to the White House next January. Harris may have been endorsed by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Hospitality Workers’ Union (UNITE) but Trump just got the imprimatur of Jake Paul.
The YouTube influencer turned ersatz professional boxer reckoned the assassin’s bullet missed the target because of “divine intervention” from above. A statement that greatly pleased his hero.
“Jake Paul... you don’t wanna fight this guy,” said Trump. “He’s got a big fight coming with Mike Tyson. But he’s glad he didn’t fight Mike when Mike was 19. He told me that today. But he’s a fantastic guy. A very talented guy in a lot of ways.”
That encomium came during an address to a Crypto conference about bitcoin, another deranged rant where he lambasted all his enemies and lauded Kid Rock, Billy Ray Cyrus, and the former Auburn University football coach Senator Tommy Tuberville. None of this is normal. This is where we are.
