The Donald And The King
President Donald Trump recently Tweeted “LeBron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made LeBron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!”. The premise of the President’s statement was clear. LeBron is dumb, but Don Lemon is dumber. This exchange between the two parties was carried out over a CNN interview (that included discussion of a new school in Akron, Ohio opening due to funding provided by LeBron James) and tweets from the President of the United States of America. Let that roll around in your head for a minute. A professional athlete gave massive amounts of money for the purpose of improving the lives of children in his hometown and the President insulted him and the man who interviewed him. In case you had forgotten, Trump and LeBron have an antagonistic history. During the NBA All-Star weekend, LeBron and Kevin Durant said some unflattering things about Trump and stated that they would not be visiting the White House if they win a championship. During the recent CNN interview, LeBron also stated that he believes that the President uses race to divide the country. Today, Don Lemon said that the President is a “straight up racist”. I don’t know if Donald Trump is truly a racist. I do know that he is an elitist and a thin-skinned egomaniac. In fact, President Trump is so thin skinned that he attacked the intelligence of the athlete and the interviewer when he should have been focused on doing his job. You know, being the President of the United States. Yes, both the athlete and the interviewer are black men. Was that the reason for the President’s attack? Honestly, I think the answer is No. The President responded so aggressively because he is a thin-skinned, petty, weak man of privilege. Any criticism that he receives is a dagger that penetrates his frail ego. This dagger cut particularly deep. In my opinion, it cut so deep for a variety of reasons. One, because it was delivered from a man of greater popularity than him. But allow me to throw another possibility into the mix. Maybe it is also fueled by jealousy. Donald Trump may be in a more powerful political position than the man known as “The King”, but who has a greater net worth? My money is on The King. I base that conclusion on the facts that LeBron James is fabulously wealthy, and the President Trump has gone to great lengths to flaunt his own wealth while simultaneously taking drastic steps to prevent inquiries into his actual financial status. The two most blatant examples of this behavior were his unwillingness to reveal his tax returns during the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election and his conveniently early exit as the potential next owner of the Buffalo Bills following the passing of original Bills’ owner Ralph Wilson. Unlike the American public, the NFL doesn’t simply take Trump’s word as gospel. When the NFL asked Trump to disclose his financial plans for paying for Buffalo’s NFL franchise, he lost interest. Now, in addition to sparring with LeBron James, Trump is taking regular jabs at the NFL. That exchange also reeks of racism. It may be. But it also may be the jealous rantings of a thin-skinned egomaniac who might not be nearly as wealthy as he likes to pretend. He also may be as Don Lemon said, a straight up racist. Whether or not he is, his comment reek for racism and he has done nothing to walk them back.
