The
President Plays Through While Our Nation Suffers
In
honoring a couple of golfers who have backed him, Trump has devalued the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, just as he has the presidency itself.
BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN
Photo: Getty Images/Illustration: Chloe Krammel
The fact that the Donald Trump
"show" has been finally and definitively canceled is small solace. It
doesn't relieve us of the burden to memorialize and document all of his
perversions and those of all of his enablers. The damage he has done is almost
incalculable. The way he has systematically tried to disparage and destroy
long-standing traditions and programs across the country is beyond
regrettable. He has cheapened the achievements of people who have
been previously recognized and honored by extending his clown show into every
institution. His grotesque tributes, awards and honors would be simply snide
and bad jokes (and maybe in his warped mind that's exactly what they are) if
they weren't draped with historical dignity and seriousness.
In a closed-door ceremony at the White House
the day after the deadly insurrection at the Capitol that he provoked, Trump
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our highest civilian tribute, to
three golfers: Annika Sorenstam, Gary Player, and Babe Didrikson Zaharias. The
first is Swedish, the second South African, the third, deceased. They seem to
have been honored for being more proficient at golf than the
president. (To be fair, Zaharias was an Olympian and professional
golf pioneer.) Yet this is simply more icing of the cake of insults and injury
from the fat fake who has played golf more than 300 days since the
start of his term.
The Professional Golfers Association of
America, on the other hand, yanked the 2022 PGA Championship from the
Trump National Golf Club Bedminster course. "It's become clear that
conducting the PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster would be detrimental to the
PGA of America brand," said Jim Richerson, PGA of America's
president.
Trump has turned the Medal of Freedom
into a trinket and handed them out like carnival prizes, especially to his most
odious enablers. He's even outdone himself by proposing to award this once
prestigious honor to two lowlife politicians, Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan, whose
only distinctions have been the depths of their own craven and self-serving
depravity, their gross political ambitions, and their steadfast sycophancy and
irrational support for Trump's ongoing lunacy. Nunes was the crooked committee
chair for the House Intelligence Committee who had to recuse himself from any
participation in the Russia probe after he allegedly shared classified information
about the investigation with Trump.
It was all too much for New England Patriots
coach Bill Belichick, a Trump supporter, who this week declined to accept the
medal he was scheduled to receive Thursday.
Awards like the Presidential Medal are supposed
to be earned by serious men and women through their prodigious efforts to aid
their fellow citizens, contribute to the common good, further the aims and
goals of the country or by virtue of being outstanding in their
field. They're not supposed to go to flunkies, funders and other frauds. At the
end of his administration, President Obama had two important and touching medal
award ceremonies. The first was for an amazing group of leaders and innovators
from many fields including Bill and Melinda Gates, Newt Minow, Diana Ross,
Michael Jordan, Maya Lin, Tom Hanks, Frank Gehry and Bruce
Springsteen. The second, surprise ceremony was solely for one
recipient - then Vice President and now President-Elect Joe Biden - where he
was awarded the unique Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction for a
lifetime of service to the United States.
Once again, the Trump touch has diminished and
demeaned an honor that many of our most important and prized heroes - including
Jonas Salk, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks and Neil Armstrong - have shared over
the years. Just as Trump's "pardons" are now stigmata of shame, the
medals he had deigned to award will never have the same value and meaning, as
his very involvement has cheapened them forever. This is Trump in a nutshell -
worthless praise, undue admiration, and no respect for tradition, morality, or
history.
Sadly, this latest affront is completely
consistent with Trump's longtime agenda. Historians will call this
frightful period an arrogant (and largely aborted) attempt to effect the Great
Undoing of almost everything that sane citizens hold near and dear. Even
the worst examples should teach us something of value. But, assuming some
rationality, what was the point and the purpose of all the pain, deceit
and death that this mirthless madman and his mendacious minions inflicted on
our people and our democracy? This angry and bitter man was going to teach the
whole world a lesson and burn the place down while he was doing so. He was
never about governance, infrastructure, charity or decency, but only about
self-dealing, hatred of others, theft and fraud-- and, especially, revenge
against imagined and fanciful enemies of his own making and
imagination. Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.
And when the dust finally settles, as the
grifters, schemers and sycophants slink away, and the slime and grime that has
tarnished every part of our country for the last four miserable years starts to
slowly and painfully be removed, what will we take away from the experience,
what lessons will we have learned, and what can we share with our
children?
The saddest sin of all the Trump lies,
exaggerations, and failings has been that this sick dog called himself an
"entrepreneur" and the media and TV networks promoted his "successes"
when the truth is that he never built anything successful that wasn't gifted to
him or grifted by him in some fashion. And as continues to become increasingly
clear, his abundant laziness, sloth and unwillingness to work - to do the job
that the position required for the last four years - will assure his place in
history as the worst president ever.
This little man wanted all the pomp,
circumstance and power, but none of the weight, the work or the responsibility.
He was a fraud from the get-go, never changed, never grew, and remains today as
sad and embittered a loser as he has always been. He lied about the Nobel
prize, he lied to every member of his family, and he lied to Americans more
than 30,000 times. Oh, and he cheats at golf.
And, amidst all the
noise and confusion, there is only one truth that we can draw from our national
nightmare and share with our children and which Trump never understood,
appreciated or valued. Every true entrepreneur knows that it's never
about the honors, medals and awards, it's always about the hard work. The
journey, the ups and downs of the race, the people who join you in the crusade,
the pride (not pridefulness) of real achievements that make a difference in the
lives of others, and the reality that there's never a finish line - just
another mountain to climb and conquer. This is all, apart from family,
that ever really matters.
The bottom line is simple: if you don’t put the
work into something, you don’t know the worth of it. Trump never worked, he has
no values, he respects no one and he hates himself. May he never darken our
doors again.
JAN 12, 2021
