Donald Trump Has Fully Lost the Culture

The so-called “sports president” has been a major vibe-killer lately.

Have you seen Donald Trump lately? You may have spotted him attempting to spin his “not final” Iran deal as anything other than a total capitulation. Maybe you caught him falling asleep in the Oval Office. You may have seen him talking about how handsome the leaders of India and Egypt are. But lately, most Donald Trump sightings have been at sporting events.

The self-described “sports president” has been everywhere lately—most notably at Game 3 of the Knicks-Spurs series in New York City, where he became the first president to attend an NBA Finals game, and at the slate of UFC fights staged on the White House Lawn. Come July 19, he will be in New Jersey, this time to hand the World Cup Trophy to a victorious U.S. captain Tim Ream. (Or, you know, some other nation’s captain.)

Sports—especially combat sports and football—have always been important to Trump’s political project, never more so in this second term. It’s an area that’s meant to show the president the way he likes to be seen: not just an avatar for the nation—he’s just another one of those regular joes that support him—but as a culturally dominant force. Trump is inescapable. He pops up even in places presidents haven’t before (like the NBA Finals). At the same time, those appearances are also often carefully........

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