Every World Cup watcher knows of our president’s self-serving stunt –pressuring FIFA president Gianni Infantino to reinstate a red-carded U.S. player.
To the rest of the field, it was a scandal. For Americans who respect the rules and the game, it was an embarrassment. It was also par for the course.
What fans don’t know is what else the man who chagrins us every day in every way wanted done:
“While we’re talking rules, Gianni: If we trail next game and time is running out, have the timekeepers arrested. Charge them with irregularities you won’t have to explain. ICE can hold them. They’re foreigners, right? Then, with replacements who answer only to you, extend the clock for however long it takes for us to win.”
“Um, that would be highly irregular, Mr. President.”
“Come on, Gi. Issue an emergency executive order. I do it every time I don’t like a rule.”
“As you are the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize laureate, we’ll consider it. Anything else we can do for you, Mr. President?”
“Yes. If we’re behind two goals or more next game, our team will swarm the field with pickaxes. You will order your refs to not lift a finger.”
“Again, highly irregular, Mr. President. But in the interest of world peace . . .”
You say that conversation didn’t happen — that such cheating would be beyond the pale even for this president.
I heard similar talk in 2019. An election was coming up, and his supporters pshawed a whistleblower’s report that he tried to extort Ukraine by making military aid contingent on a fake probe of Joe Biden.
Not me. I said, “Sounds like what this deeply corrupt man would do.” Guess who was right?
No president in U.S. history has so readily flushed away ethical restraints and smirked away the rule of law.
On that note: White House lawyers shortly will caravan to the Supreme Court with shiny, taxpayer-paid pickaxes with which to wreck U.S. elections.
They know what they seek is illegal. The president of the United States cannot control elections. They “shall be prescribed by the states” and Congress — Article 1, Section 4.
But this president, hoping to count on corrupted Supreme Court appointees he appointed wants to usurp the Constitution less than 100 days before the midterm elections. He wants to take the knees out of mail-in voting.
He wants the U.S. Postal Service, relying on a “state citizenship list” compiled by Immigration and Naturalization Services, to withhold ballots cast by those not on the list.
Losses in appellate courts on this reckless directive have continued a staggering losing streak on behalf of the Big Lie, which is built around two whoppers (1) that somehow mail-in ballots were corrupted; (2) that great numbers of non-citizens voted to rob the Big Liar of victory in 2020.
Since then, the Republican Party has saluted this smelly pile of horse apples every time the sun shines. Every GOP elected official knows the president is lying but won’t say it.
Ultimately the sole function of all the lying is to tamp down voter turnout to benefit the Rs.
It’s clear why mail-in voting, relied upon by a third of Americans including this president, is the target. Those who support Democrats have been more inclined to vote by mail. To this president, the subversion or abolition of mail-in is a desperation stab at keeping his party in power for the rest of his term.
A man in his position could be doing so many things to make life better for struggling Americans. Can anyone think of a thing he’s done to that end? Anyone? Anything?
Mainly he’s served himself with unprecedented get-rich machinations.
Members of our armed services risk and lose their lives in the Middle East, the nation’s fortune expended in an illegal war he couldn’t even bother to explain to the public or Congress.
While prices soar from the resulting oil shocks and unconstitutional tariffs, on what does this man focus? On row after row of obscenely expensive vanity projects that either are blocked in court or have blown up in his face.
And now he wants to hijack the nation’s elections – not because they aren’t working as intended but because the Big Lie hinges on his bogus claims and advances his vote-suppression aims.
Judges have thrown out more than 60 MAGA lawsuits alleging the vote cannot be trusted. How about one more?
The pickaxe brigade isn’t done swinging.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
