I’ll be blunt. It pained me to see the President of the United States booed and catcalled Sunday night at the World Series.
I do not like Donald Trump, and have no desire to see him re-elected. I’m in the camp that feels he’s done tremendous damage to this country, some of the worst of it being how we treat fellow Americans who disagree.
And in that sense, Trump saw some of that pushed back in his face Sunday night when he was roundly booed and serenaded with chants of “lock him up” when he was introduced during the fifth game of the World Series.
But it sounded like a Trump crowd in reverse, and I am not comfortable with that at all. We all heard his crowds screaming to “lock her up” during the 2016 campaign, regarding opponent Hillary Clinton. The idea that he’d advocate throwing a political rival in jail was appalling.
I understand that when you think of it, Trump doesn’t make too many spontaneous public appearances. His interactions with crowds are such that he surrounds himself with sycophants, and makes sure his rallies are stocked with supporters.
Those who are not on board with him don’t get many chances to let him know what we think of him, and that ballgame was one of them.
So I get it. I might have been tempted to boo too if I’d been there. But in the end, I don’t think I would have.
I’d have sat on my hands, probably. Looked straight ahead. Conjured up as disgusting a look as I could and worn it on my face, as if something in the stadium smelled bad. And prayed the camera found me.
But I wouldn’t have booed.
I wouldn’t have booed because Donald Trump, as much as I may loathe him, is not Wilt Chamberlain, the 7-foot-2 villain from the Philadelphia 76ers/Los Angeles Lakers who was Bill Russell’s foil in the sixties. He is not some designated bad guy from the pro wrestling circuit whose job it is to act as the mean guy in those phony matches we all used to watch as kids.
Those people you booed because it was part of the theater of the event. Wilt the Stilt was just a giant of a basketball player, but he was little more than that. Your designated wrestling villain was just that — a make-believe character who had little impact on anything other than what he was doing while he was in the ring.
This guy’s real. His decisions affect millions of people. When he shows up, it’s not a fake wrestling match, and it’s not basketball theater.
He is the President of the United States, and while I cannot respect anything about Donald Trump the man, when he’s anywhere in an official capacity, I think people owe the office of the presidency the appropriate respect.
To my way of thinking, when Donald Trump is making an official presidential appearance, it’s not just him up there. It’s everybody from George Washington through Barack Obama. To me, that’s who you’re booing when you do that.
I get those who want to register their distaste for him in the strongest possible terms. But booing him at a baseball game hardly qualifies as the strongest possible terms.
There is only one way you can register your disgust for him and have it make a difference. You can learn about the issues, participate in the process, work to defeat him next year, and hopefully restore to the office some of the dignity he has stripped from it.
Please. In the future, let’s not take more dignity away from the office by treating the chief executive — regardless of how much you may dislike him — like he was some kind of cheap sideshow wrestling fraud. Trump himself may not deserve to be treated with the respect of the office, but the office itself deserves at least that.
