Politics - News Analysis

Lazy Trump Flies to New Orleans for Football Game So He Can Get Guaranteed Applause for His Fragile Ego

Donald Trump is really humiliated that he has been impeached, and is about to be tried in the Senate.

So what does the Narcissist-in-Chief do?

Uses taxpayer money to fly his wife and cronies to New Orleans for the championship game Monday night between Clemson and Louisiana State University.

Since October, Trump has attended a World Series game (where he got booed); a UFC mixed martial arts bout (a mix of cheers and boos); the LSU-Alabama game (cheers); and the traditional Army-Navy game (cheers for the commander in chief).

“It was my Great Honor to attend the 120th Army-Navy game,” Trump tweeted during his Dec. 14 trip.

Two years ago this month, Trump traveled to Atlanta for the college football title game between Alabama and Georgia.

Like many of his predecessors, Trump has used sports events in order to be seen by voters.

Yet this president has been more political with his athletic activity, from attacking professional football players who knelt during the national anthem to protest racism to promoting his November appearance at the LSU-Alabama game during a rally for a governor’s candidate in Louisiana.

Football in particular has long been a “political tool” for Trump, said Erin Tarver, author of “The I in Team: Sports Fandom and the Reproduction of Identity.”

During a 2017 rally in Alabama, at the same time he was excoriating players who knelt during the national anthem, Trump protested new NFL rules that penalized players for hard hits that targeted opponents’ heads. “Today, if you hit too hard, 15 yards, throw him out of the game,” Trump said at one point. “They’re ruining the game, right?”

Twitter had some thoughts:

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