(Editor’s note: as we head into the final hours preceding the U.S. Presidential Election, we revisit and republish some of the sports and pop culture stories we ran in 2016 relating to the electoral process)
As unstable and non-intellectual as GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump is, he is not AS insane and THIS LEVEL of stupid as he is conveying this week. While the Republican nominee to lead the free world isn’t as wildly successful a businessman as his brand signifies, he’s also not dumb.
You know the old saying- a fool and his money are soon parted, and if Trump were truly as dumb as his behavior has been this week, he’d be penniless.
Thus, it’s become clear, he knows what he’s doing, and he’s “throwing it.” Yes, Donald Trump has to be sabotaging his own presidential campaign. Although only Trump and those closest to him can verify this idea, it’s pretty obvious now to anyone with half a brain.
This is unprecedented in presidential politics.
History is unfolding right before eyes.
However, in sports, this kind of thing has actually happened before.
The 1919 Chicago White Sox, like Trump, advanced to the final round of their competition before “tanking it.” Like Trump, the team that history named “the Black Sox,” made their self-sabotage blatantly obvious at times. Read Eliot Asinof’s “Eight Men Out,” or if you don’t have time, see the movie. In the field, the ’19 White Sox made ridiculously bad throws on easy, routine plays. The pitchers who almost never walked anybody, all season long, all of a sudden could not find the strike zone, and when they did, it looked like they were tossing a 16″ softball underhand.
The players grouped under the “Black Sox” label stood to potentially make much more money from losing the World Series than they did had they won it. If/when Trump loses, he gets to keep all those millions of dollars he raised and is selfishly not spending right now on his presidential “ambitions.” Trump is not spending big money on a huge advertising campaign like Clinton is.
He does not have a real political ground game. Instead he’s just “going after it” with a bare-bones, staff with numbers that pale in comparison to his opponent. The Trump campaign doesn’t look to be loosening the purse strings any time soon either.
The Black Sox are not the perfect analogy for Trump, but they are an apt one.
The better analogy might be the plot to Mel Brooks’ The Producers.
In that film-turned-musical-turned-film remake, the story’s protagonists, Bialystock and Bloom, find a way to make more money with a flop, then they can with a hit. Bialystock and Bloom then attempt to sabotage themselves, but unwittingly find themselves only gaining in popularity despite their kamikaze efforts.
Sound familiar?
Many have already analogized Trump to The Producers, but I haven’t heard anyone make the Black Sox comparison yet. The idea of Trump intentionally losing the election is far from original. The New Yorker ran a tongue-in-cheek humor essay, way back in January that seems incredibly true to life right now.
The Chicago Tribune gave a more straight-up journalist take, presenting the same idea, earlier this week.
Via CNBC: Donald Trump‘s assertion that President Barack Obama is the “founder” of ISIS runs counter to reality, and it pretty much confirms the idea that he wants out and he’ll say absolutely anything to get out.
CNBC, as ultra-conservative a bastion as you’ll find in the media, have the true ISIS founding story at this link.
Far-right conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt gave Trump numerous chances to explain away and walk back the comments, but Trump wouldn’t take the opportunity. In fact, Trump has only reiterated his insane idea that Obama is literally the founder of the most evil and widely despised group on Earth. He’s doubled, tripled and sextupled down on it.
He said it again in five separate situations during the first 24 hours following the initial instance he uttered such garbage.
“I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace,” Hewitt attempted to guide Trump.
“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do,” Trump stated flatly, standing firm.
“But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them,” a shocked Hewitt said, left defending the President.
“I don’t care. He was the founder,” Trump insisted.
“They screwed everything up,” Hewitt allowed, “But by using the term founder, they’re hitting with you on this again.”
“Mistake?” Hewitt tried again.
“No, it’s no mistake,” Trump refused. “Everyone’s liking it. I think they’re liking it,” he assured the host.
“I give him the most valuable player award. And I give it to him, and I give it to, I gave the co-founder to Hillary. I don’t know if you heard that,” he added, repeating a line he has been saying since January.
“I know what you’re arguing,” Hewitt tirelessly continued.
“Do you not like that?” Trump shot back.
“I don’t. I think I would say they created, they lost the peace. They created the Libyan vacuum, they created the vacuum into which ISIS came, but they didn’t create ISIS. That’s what I would say,” Hewitt finally offered Trump.
“Well, I disagree.”
Forget the “presidential pivot” people.
Oh there’s been a pivot.
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/763841459560783872
Switching to football terms instead of baseball…
…Trump’s “Putin should hack us” and the attacks on the Gold Star family were essentially throwing a hail mary into quintuple coverage. It was self-destructive and stupid, but it still looked like he was maybe still trying really hard to win.
His 2nd Amendment comment Tuesday was like throwing the ball to the right side of the field, when only defenders reside there, and every receiver you have is on the left. Totally inexplicable, remarkably self-defeating but it still left a bit of wiggle room for his apologists to work with. It was disgusting, offensive and seriously wrong on all kinds of different levels, but it still wasn’t as awful as the ISIS remarks.
What Trump has done now is basically handing the ball to the opposing linebacker when he’s already in your backfield and there’s no one in front of him to the end zone.
Okay so Trump wants to lose, now what?
Well, that’s what is truly frightening.
Why would someone intentionally lose the presidency? Do they have something bigger planned?
Maybe Trump knows of an “October Surprise,” and it’s so big, equal in size to his ego and desperation for constant attention, that he believes he can get away with behaving in the manner that he is now and yet somehow still win?
If that’s true, what he has planned is much scarier than ISIS even.
Or, then again, it’s just about collecting the money and we’re giving him too much credit. In the past 24-48 hours, Trump has done something he hadn’t previously done the entire campaign- publicly discuss what he might do if he legitimately loses the election.
Up until now, he’s never even entertained the idea of actually losing. Maybe that’s the most obvious sign he’s tanking it right there. You can probably apply the law of parsimony now, and with that simplest explanation holding true, Trump is saying to himself:
“Hey, if you’re going to go down, you might as well go down in flames!”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.