AS I SEE IT COLUMN: The MAGA-fication of sport is upon us

The disturbing news that Donald Trump wants to host a mixed martial arts fight at the White House to celebrate America’s 250th birthday next summer, is the latest example that the attempted MAGA-fication of sport is happening in front of our very eyes.

There is a lot of evidence from a broad swath of sports to support that claim.

It isn’t just desecrating the White House with a hyper violent, blood thirsty-sport with virtually no rules; it’s the wide-ranging attempted influence on sport by someone who has been convicted by a jury of his peers of committing multiple crimes and someone who said that for more than a decade he was “best friends” with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and the many other examples – too numerous to list here – of his repulsive personality.

Here’s a quick list of some of the many ways the president and his MAGA followers are attempting to use their racist and cruel fever dreams to shape the sports world into their deranged worldview.

SHOHEI OHTANI – Near the end of the regular season the Los Angeles Dodger pitcher had the best game ever played in baseball. On the mound he struck out 10 batters. At the plate he hit three monstrous home runs on the way to sending the Dodgers to the World Series. How did MAGA world react? By applauding the most amazing game by a player that baseball has ever seen? Of course not. They questioned his immigration status. They lamented he’s not an American. They openly wished he gets deported.

They simply cannot stand that a foreigner of colour – a Japanese player – is the best player in baseball.

RYDER CUP – Shortly after the president arrived at this summer’s Ryder Cup, the rowdy fans sank to a new low in the awful way they treated the European players and their wives. The president’s childlike habit of ridiculing and name-calling people has given his MAGA cult permission to also be disgustingly rude.

4 NATIONS – With emotions boiling over heading into the final that saw Canada take on the U.S., the president couldn’t help himself. Instead of simply rooting for his team, he had to disrespect the leader of our country by calling him “governor” instead of Prime Minister and to once again threaten to make Canada America’s 51st state.

OLYMPICS – The president doesn’t like left-leaning California, so now he is threatening to move the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics to a different city due to potential “safety concerns.” If Biden or Obama had threatened something like that, the right would declare civil war.

WORLD CUP – Similarly, because the perpetually aggrieved president doesn’t like Boston, he is planting the seed that he may need to move the World Cup of soccer out of Boston for supposed safety reasons that – surprise, surprise – have no basis in reality and are flat out lies.

SUPER BOWL – MAGA folk are mighty upset about this year’s half-time performer at the Super Bowl. Bad Bunny, an American citizen from Puerto Rico, is one of the most popular musicians on earth, but that doesn’t matter in MAGA world. Bad Bunny is a person of colour who speaks Spanish and the racist MAGA followers of the president simply cannot abide a non-white half-time performer. The president’s Department of Homeland Security is threatening to send immigration officials to the game. Instead of simply letting an American citizen do his thing, the president hopes to instill fear by threatening to deport fans showing up for the big game.

Convicted felon Trump, who should be in jail and not the White House, who is both panoramically stupid and existentially evil, is simultaneously a clown and a monster.

He and his MAGA followers want baseball, the Olympics, soccer, international hockey, football, golf – and sport in general – to conform to their unhinged, pathological worldview.

We cannot let that happen.