Reason #30: Sportsman.
Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House?
In Donald Trump’s checkered business career, he has tried to make money in many spheres, frequently failing miserably. Professional sports ownership is no exception. Trump has failed to purchase either a professional baseball team or an NFL team despite multiple attempts.
In 1983, he did buy a professional football team in the nascent U.S. Football league. Despite signing two Heisman trophy winners, Herschel Walker and Doug Flutie and having a decent regular season record, the Generals lost in the playoffs and routinely left Giant’s Stadium half empty. The enterprise folded after three years. It is unknown how much this losing venture cost Donald Trump.
As per usual, his employees stated that they were handled badly, treating cheerleaders “like hookers”. Although he had personally insisted on picking Doug Flutie instead of Randall Cunningham, when Flutie struggled, a publicist named James Barron badmouthed Flutie and blamed other owners for pressuring Trump to sign the Boston College QB. It was later rumored that James Barron was Donald Trump himself, doing a little underhanded maligning over the telephone.
What is known for sure is that many blame Trump personally for stubbornly insisting that the USFL go head-to-head against the NFL by playing, not as in previous years in the Spring, but during autumn and winter in 1985. The result was disaster. The new football league folded. Trump later got one of his rare courtroom victories, when the USFL sued the NFL for $1.69 billion. They were awarded the massive sum of one dollar, from the National Football League; tripled to three dollars, because it was an anti-trust case, plus another $3 and change in interest. That totaled out to almost a dollar for each USFL team! In the end Trump is widely blamed as being personally responsible for the loss not only of a professional football team but the disappearance of an entire league.
One of the biggest losers in the implosion of the USFL was Doug Flutie, who had signed a personal service contract with Trump for $8 million. He had to give up $5 million to be allowed to play in the NFL.
So much for football ownership. What next?
The Tour de France is an enormous success worldwide. Donald decided that he would take a flutter, joining Billy Packer in inaugurating the “Tour de Trump” in 1979. The ten-day long, 837-mile bicycle road race went reasonably well (at least for the cyclists) but not so well for its promoter. Trump was widely loathed in his home state already in 1989 and when the racers pedaled into New Paltz, NY they were greeted by protesters attacking Trump with abusive signs, including one that read “Die Yuppie $cum”. The following stages were relatively uneventful but in the final stage the wheels came off. Belgian racer Eric Vanderaerden had a comfortable lead as he approached the finish line in Atlantic City, where, as previously described, the Donald owned three competing casinos that were in disastrous financial condition. It has been alleged that the route was badly marked and Vanderaerden followed a tour motorcycle into a wrong turn, then had to backtrack and finished third.
Donald Trump is not a genius entrepreneur. He has the “Shidas touch”. Most of what he puts his hand to, turns into ordure. Please do not waste your vote on a serial loser.
Have a heart; use your mind, search your conscience, and vote for Democratic candidates – across the ballot – on November. 5th ,2024
Please share this message with your friends and please, add your thoughts, to expand upon what are only brief sketches here.
Fred Grannis
August 18, 2024