AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Trump uses sport to spread hatred and cruelty

For many years Donald Trump has used sport to spread his noxious elixir of hate, cruelty and racism.

In 2019 when NFL players started kneeling during the U.S. anthem to protest police killing unarmed black men and boys, criminal Trump said: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b**ch off the field right now.’”

During the 2023 World Cup, the president actively cheered against the U.S. National Women’s soccer team, because they turned down an invitation to the White House after winning the 2019 World Cup. “I would root for Al Qaeda before I’d root for this American Women’s Soccer Team” said the ever classy Trump.

Here are some current examples of Trump using sport to promote his hatred:

Jackie Robinson: Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in North American sports when he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. He is one of the most consequential athletes in world history. What many sports fans don’t know is that Robinson was also a proud member of the U.S. military.

In his ongoing grotesque attempts to erase black people from American history, Trump – who never served a day in the military because he supposedly had bone spurs – demanded that the web page highlighting Robinson’s military service be removed from the Pentagon’s website.

Thankfully, there was such a deluge of public and corporate shock that the page was reinstated, but the sad episode proves once again that Trump hates people of colour.

4 Nations: There was a lot of press attention regarding the president’s phone call to Team USA before the championship game against Canada. He used that call to infuriate our entire nation by once again insulting our Prime Minister and suggesting Canada join the U.S.

Connor McGregor: On St. Patrick’s Day, felon Trump invited fellow sexual predator Connor McGregor to the White House. Both the MMA fighter and Trump have been convicted in civil courts, by juries of their peers, of sexual assault. McGregor used his time in the Oval Office to rant against immigration in his native Ireland. The site of two convicted sexual predators degrading the White House to spew their racism, shows once again there is no limit to criminal Trump’s hatred of immigrants.

Pete Rose: Pete Rose is baseball’s all-time hit king. He was banned from baseball’s Hall of Fame for life after he admitted to gambling on baseball, and in 1990 Rose served five months in jail for tax fraud. Rose passed away in 2024 and now the criminal occupant of the White House wants to grant Rose a posthumous pardon, thinking that in addition to “owning the libs” it will finally get the controversial Rose into the Hall.

Russia-USA hockey/War in Ukraine: Trump promised to stop the war in Ukraine on day 1 of his presidency, yet he wasted precious time in a meeting with Putin to discuss a hockey series between the U.S. and Russia. What the puck? Even for someone so panoramically stupid as Trump – remember his idea of ingesting bleach to fight COVID? – discussing hockey when people are dying is Exhibit 846 that he is a monster who is manifestly unfit for the office of the presidency.

Here in Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney is deftly using sport to unite Canadians. Appearing in an ad with comedy legend Mike Meyers where both are wearing Team Canada jerseys, they watch hockey and talk politics. At the end of the ad viewers see that Meyers’ jersey number is “Never 51”, a reference to the president’s nauseating talk about turning our home and native land into America’s 51st state.

Will Trump wanna-be Pierre Poilievre use sport to lift his sinking campaign? As Poilievre’s fever dream of being Canada’s Trump continues to slip away with each new poll showing a growing majority of Canadians wanting nothing to do with someone who talks like Trump and acts like Trump, the increasingly desperate Conservatives might just put out an ad with Poilievre and Trump buddy Wayne Gretzky or Trump’s other sports bestie, Bobby Orr.

Buy Canada. Bye America.