First Draft: Trump Can’t Buy Joy
In DC, a sad, racist old man celebrated his 80th birthday with an event juicing his crypto businesses. In New York, thousands danced and sang and learned about each other.
On this day in 1858, at the Illinois Republican Convention in Springfield, U.S. Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln warned that amid national divides over slavery, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Within three years, Lincoln would be president, with civil war raging.
Good morning! Prem here. Wishing you a wonderful Tuesday wherever you are. I’m just returning from London, where I met Paddington, cursed the monarchy, and ate scones. One observation: It is crazy how captured US society is by crypto and AI. On the “tube,” I saw maybe one ad every now and again about our dear favorite industries. But in the New York subways, you simply cannot escape the next “.ai” or startup shoving itself in your face. I’m sure they’re on their way everywhere, but it was jarring to see the contrast even between two otherwise relatively similar cities…
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ the joy of sports in New York outshines Trump’s pathetic UFC 80th birthday extravaganza (which also served as one huge advertisement for trash he and his family are invested in). Plus: Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is out with a new ad featuring one Bernie Sanders.
Two Americas
Could there have been a better illustration of the competing visions of society than Donald Trump’s pathetic, sad UFC extravaganza happening alongside the effervescence in New York, as thousands from around the world enjoy the World Cup, and rejoice in the Knicks’ victory?
Let me clear my throat first: There’s no need to strain ourselves to project political commentary onto sports, or to conflate only certain evils with certain sports. The NBA isn’t inherently a holier institution than the UFC, not when you recall that Knicks’ owner Jim Dolan warmly welcomed Trump to a game last week, or that Dolan has also allegedly used facial recognition technology to surveil a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more.
What’s of interest here to me is how the public engaged with sport, and what sport did or did not afford to society. So let’s take a look.