Trump’s Participation Trophy

He Didn’t Earn It. He Just Wouldn’t Get Off The Stage

-by Jerrad Christian

Trump crashed the Club World Cup trophy ceremony like a drunk uncle with a fake backstage pass. He didn’t kick a ball, didn’t coach, didn’t sponsor the event, let’s be honest— probably didn’t buy the ticket. But there he was, handing out trophies, soaking up the spotlight like he’d just scored the winning goal.

To make it even “better,” FIFA’s president tried to shuffle Trump off the stage, but Trump awkwardly stayed as an unwelcome guest. Confusing players and earning boos from the crowd.

They booed so loud the stadium blared the music to cover it up. Because nothing says “leader of the people” like needing the volume knob turned up so Trump can’t hear how sick of his shit we are.

As with everything, this was about his ego. This man couldn’t name five players on the field, but he saw cameras and couldn’t help himself. He is trying to work his way into every aspect of American life like an RFK brainworm. He overtook the news of a solar eclipse by staring at the sun. Hijacked COVID news by telling folks to essentially inject bleach and shine lights inside our bodies. The “very stable genius” took over an area of protest to hold a Bible upside down, and later he tried to get us to nuke a hurricane.

He needs the stage, needs the attention. Doesn’t matter what it’s for. If someone’s getting applause, he’s going to sprint up there and act like it was for him. A fragile ego doing fragile ego things.

But history is full of men like this— Mussolini used to show up to ribbon-cuttings for bridges he didn’t fund and factories he didn’t plan, just to soak in the cheers.

Stalin had people literally erased from photos so it looked like he did everything alone.

Saddam Hussein took it even further— his son Uday ran the Iraqi Olympic team and Saddam took the glory whenever the players won.

But Trump isn’t a strong man. He’s desperate. He’s the political equivalent of a direct to DVD sequel to Air Force One— “Air Force Two: Property of Qatar.”

This man is so allergic to irrelevance he’d probably take the ribbon from a dog at a dog show.

As if they don’t want the US World Cup to succeed, JD Vance is making threats to visitors to the US, saying “Of course, everybody is welcome to come and see this incredible event.. But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home. Otherwise, they’ll have to talk to Secretary Noem.”

We’re just supposed to watch it play out like it’s normal. Like it’s fine for a washed-up conman, whose greatest day was being in Home Alone 2 over 30 years ago, to fake-preside over a soccer tournament, hand out participation trophies, get booed by a stadium, then fly off in a plane gifted to him by a petrostate.

It’d almost be funny if it wasn’t so sad— how often people like those in his sphere bring up participation trophies, only to have their leader holding a new one every day. Maybe for the next one, he should request a trophy just small enough to finally make his hands look big.