donaldtrump Archives

Hello darkness my new friend, because Aaron Rodgers likes it

March 27, 2023

I think New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh is taking that first line from one of the signature tunes of West Side Story too seriously. You know the one — “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way! From your first cigarette to your last dyin’ day!” With the team’s flirtation and outright “You up?” texts to Aaron Rodgers to bring him to East Rutherford, New Jersey from Green Bay, the Jets head coach is familiarizing himself with all things weird. Because that’s what the 39-year-old quarterback is into these days. And we have evidence of that from a Monday news conference where Saleh said he’s “intrigued” by the idea of doing a darkness retreat. So, who’s running the team while you’re in isolation?

Rodgers’ personal quirks have come out over the last year or so, which happens to coincide with his worst professional season in well over a decade. Darkness retreats and ayahuasca have become closely associated with the soon-to-be former Packers’ leader. And I guess if it’s good enough for your quarterback, why not try it yourself? Rodgers credited the time away from society as why he wanted to be at the doorstep of the most populous urban center in America. What interesting thoughts would Saleh come up with as he only gets lost in his own mind? Saleh does have seven kids, so spending time away from them sounds right to truly come into one’s self. Sorry you missed those doctor’s appointments, kids. Your dad was trying to emulate the actions of a quarterback on the downslide of his career.

Months ago, Saleh was at the center of a prophecy by, hopefully, soon-to-be-indicted former President Donald Trump, where the orange Teletubby said he’s better than Vince Lombardi. This conversation allegedly took place after New York’s Week 2 victory over the Browns. At the time Saleh had five wins to his name as an NFL head coach. Lombardi has led teams to five NFL Championships. “Coach, you’re greater than Vince Lombardi because Vince Lombardi never did that. He was never able to pull out a game like that,” Trump supposedly, and in all likelihood made up, all while flailing his arms like he was playing an invisible accordion.

Here’s Saleh’s chance to prove Trump right! The Jets actually have enough pieces in one of the toughest divisions in football to make the playoffs this season. All New York truly needs to compete is a solid quarterback, and the jury’s out whether that’ll be Rodgers, and a good offensive line to protect the soon-to-be-40-year-old purveyor of darkness retreats. And the guy at the helm wants to experience that isolation too. What could go wrong?

Is the new Vince McMahon biography worth reading?

March 27, 2023

A new biography of Vince McMahon is about to hit the shelves.

On one hand, mainstream interest in Vince McMahon, the “Walt Disney of wrestling” has never been higher: last year he retired in disgrace as CEO and chairman after allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. (He has previously been twice accused of sexual assault, and has denied all allegations of wrongdoing.) McMahon has since returned as chairman earlier this year amidst a rumored sale of the company. On the other, all of this allegedly happened in the space of six months, no mean feat for any biographer to have to fit into an already sprawling life history, let alone with publication looming.

This is what author Abraham Josephine Riesman has attempted in Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America, released 28th March, just in time for what is poised to be one of the biggest WrestleManias of all time taking place on 1st and 2nd April in Los Angeles. The result is to varying degrees of success, with Riesman giving us a top-heavy deep dive into McMahon’s early life. Ringmaster is meticulously researched, with nearly 40 percent of the book devoted to endnotes, but it’s a largely dry and dense linear biography that doesn’t really provide an entrypoint for lay people.

This may prove a barrier for wrestling fans, too, who, if common perceptions are to be believed, aren’t exactly known for their appreciation of literature.

What don’t we already know about Vince McMahon?

Where Ringmaster flourishes is in its cultural study of McMahon’s position in American society, as the subtitle suggests, which is an effective format that Riesman largely devotes herself to in the backend, with connections to everyone from Rick Santorum to Saddam Hussein and, of course, Donald Trump, who has appeared many times on WWE programming and is close friends with natural “heel” (wrestling parlance for bad guy) McMahon.

This ultimately peters out, though. “The earliest memory I have of my period of fandom is watching the Owen Hart memorial Raw,” Riesman acknowledges, with reams dedicated to Hart’s in-ring death and subsequent tribute show in 1999, which rightly rocked the wrestling world at the time. Reisman didn’t watch wrestling with any regularity over the past two decades, which is perhaps why this incident looms so large in Riesman’s consciousness and, indeed, the rest of this book, resulting in more recent events which arguably had a larger impact on the industry, such as the Chris Benoit double murder-suicide in 2007, being skimmed over.

What about all the…unpleasantness?

Earlier impactful events in wrestling and, indeed, McMahon’s career, such as the alleged murder of Nancy Argento by one of McMahon’s wrestlers, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka (“The potential for scandal—dead girl, live wrestler, previous incident, blind eye turned—was enormous,” Riesman writes, but “one shouldn’t underestimate petty misogyny’s ability to scuttle a domestic violence investigation.”) and McMahon’s alleged rape of WWE’s first female referee, Rita Chatterton, in the 1980s, are peppered throughout the first half of the book’s largely linear timeline (McMahon denies the rape accusation). By the millennium, this is mostly done away with in favor of more ideological musings—a format which I think the book would have been better served by adhering to from the jump.

“Vince created and inhabited a public persona so dastardly and villainous that no truth or lie, no accusation or allegation could further tarnish him,” Riesman writes, ending the book on a September 2021 edition of WWE SmackDown, which she was in attendance for at Madison Square Garden. Upon asking some of the fans at the show what they thought of McMahon, Riesman notes:

This book is a powerful testimony to those things. I only hope that a) Ringmaster is picked up by some of these fans who chanted “thank you, Vince” at his retirement segment nearly a year later, and b) some of them stick this time.

Scarlett Harris is a culture critic and author of the book A Diva Was a Female Version of a Wrestler: An Abbreviated Herstory of World Wrestling Entertainment. You can read her previously published work at her website, The Scarlett Woman, and follow her on Twitter @ScarlettEHarris.

Hey Deion, there is no generational divide on privilege

March 25, 2023

If you currently play football for Colorado, you had better use a strong black marker to write your name on the tape on your helmet. The way that Deion Sanders has the program’s spring practice set up, the players currently do not have numbers. On the field is just going to be a mass of black, white, and gold jerseys.

Sanders’ explanation for this latest attention-seeking decision is that he is old school.

“Anybody in here over 45?” Sanders asked the media. “Didn’t we have to earn every durn thing we got?”

No, your generation did not. Sanders is a member of Generation X. Just like the Millennials and Gen Z after them, that generation was too called lazy and entitled. It is a time-honored tradition for middle-aged and older people to hurl those accusations at the youth.

The truth is, for most people the world is a difficult place and to become a financial success takes a great deal of hard work and some luck. But for some people, luck had a lot more to do with their financial windfalls than work.

For Coach Prime and others who believe everyone over 45 years old had it tougher than today’s young people, here are some people that age and older who were given quite a bit.

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The leader of the band JD and the Straight Shots. His father, Charles, moved from Cleveland to New York and began a cable television empire. He started Home Box Office (HBO) which he sold in the 1970s to Time Life, and Cablevision which the family sold in 2015 for $2.2 billion.

He struggled scholastically when his parents sent him to the preparatory high school his father graduated from in Andover, Mass. He never made the honor roll, yet he still got into a prestigious university, and eventually became POTUS.

I enjoy Charlie Sheen’s work. Two and a Half Men reruns are great weekend afternoon viewing.

That scene in Major League when he busts out of the bullpen and Cleveland Municipal Stadium and the crowd shouts along to “Wild Thing,” that goosebump-producing energy can make you momentarily forget the racism littered throughout the movie, including in the stands at that very moment.

The man who continually keeps the people of Colorado from enjoying the Nikola Jokić experience. He did finally bring NFL football back to Los Angeles — and was appropriately splashy with the extravagant SoFi Stadium. However, he is able to pull all of that off while also settling a $790 billion lawsuit with the city of St. Louis because Kroenke has taken full advantage of the “what’s mine is yours,” aspect of marriage.

His wife is Ann Walton. Not of the basketball-playing Waltons — or the fictious TV family — but of the ones that founded Walmart. The massive complex where a person can buy pots, deodorant, televisions, ground beef, mops, and more all for some of the lowest prices in towns from sea to shining sea.

I ain’t saying he’s a …

Talk about generational wealth. This French family could buy Europe if they so choose.

Bernard Arnault is the wealthiest man in the world. He is the founder of the largest luxury brand in the world, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. How did he create a company that houses a plethora of brands that people aspire to blow money on the moment that they stop living paycheck to paycheck, and sometimes before?

He took over his father’s company. Jean Léon owned a construction company. Bernard turned it into a real estate company and then used $15 million from that to purchase Christian Dior. Two of his five children are 47 and 45 years old. Delphine was recently named CEO of Dior. Antoine is the head of LVHM’s communications, image, and environment.

One of the men in control of the firehose of money that was sprayed through politics in the previous decade — most of it at the Republican Party.

How did Koch and his late brother David amass so much wealth that they were able to hold a massive swath of influence on the American government? They took over their father’s company.

Their father made his money in refineries. They worked for him and then took over the company after his death, renamed it Koch Industries, and bought out their other two brothers.

I’m sure his business proposal for his online bookstore was thorough. Starting that business from scratch with dial-up internet just growing in popularity at the time was a risk that he and his ex-wife helped mitigate with their hard work.

That all being said, how many of you out there can ask your parents to invest nearly $250,000 into your business idea?

(Let’s see if uses his wealth to buy the Washington Commanders.)

The optimity of unearned status and hubris. This man started life on third base, got picked off, and still became the American name so associated with wealth that he was allowed to be the country’s boss.

Living arguably the most luxurious life in the history of humanity and having to do literally nothing but exist because of lineage. I do believe these people have been handed everything.

Deadspin’s 10 best stories about Donald Trump & sports

March 21, 2023

In honor of…uh, things potentially happening today, we decided to take a look back at some of Deadspin’s best pieces on former President Donald Trump, also non-lovingly known as TFG — The Former Guy. You may think of TFG as solely a former President of the United States, but you’d be wrong! Because TFG is nothing if not sporty. He plays tennis! He owned a USFL team! He recently won a completely normal golf tournament!

So join us, won’t you? As we take a walk down memory lane and remember some our best (sports-related) TFG content.

Trump Is The Main Reason We Won’t Have College Football

One of many vacuous issues Trump was more fixated on than the pandemic was the college football season. He needed the distraction from his plummeting popularity numbers. Yet, one of the ironies is that his apathy for Covid nearly cost college football an entire season.