Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Rich
Four years ago, in the wake of a national election, I wrote an opinion piece for the now defunct The Cauldron titled With All Due Respect, Nick Saban and Ernie Johnson Just Don’t Get It.
Iconic head coach Saban, a leader of men, caught my ire because he insisted voting wasn’t important to him, and even if it was, gosh darn it, he just wasn’t smart enough to know who to vote for:
“Well, to be honest with you, I didn’t even know yesterday was Election Day. So, it was so important to me, that I didn’t even know it was happening. We’re focused on other things here. I don’t really make political comments. So, if I say I like one person, that means that everybody that voted for the other person doesn’t like me. So why would I do that? I want what’s best for our country. I’m not sure I can figure that out. I want what’s best for people who want to improve the quality of their life, um, and I hope whoever our leader is will certainly do all that he can do to make our country safe and improve the quality of life of a lot of people that we have in our country — and I don’t think I’m qualified to determine who that should be.” — Nick Saban
Coach was abdicating his responsibility as a U.S. citizen and I wondered what he was thinking now, four years after watching this American carnage, after catching the coronavirus himself, all because the vote he arrogantly wouldn’t take the time to make resulted in a President who watched the virus come to our shores, only to puke on his own shoes in fear, eschewing his office, shoving the responsibility for handling the virus on 50 disparate states, who were ill-equipped to do exactly what the federal government was meant to do in the first place — marshal resources and lead a nation in a moment of crisis.
Then, I got my answer from an unlikely direction, like a wayward tee shot upside the head from the wrong fairway courtesy of the greatest golfer of all time:
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man. — Julius Caesar
Make no mistake, Jack Nicklaus’s signature there at the bottom of his plea to vote for Donald Trump is meant to give the imprimatur of absolute authority. As one who has come face-to-face with that signature before, boy, do I get it.
One evening in the salad days of my youth, my father came home with his white golf glove signed by the great man himself. I pulled the glove and its magical stamp of greatness onto my eager fingers. I pulled it taut and clenched my hand into a fist, fully revealing the signature broadly across the back of my hand.
The signature was not just recognizable, it was famous for what it represented — the game’s greatest champion, a godlike figure who stood astride a game known for its honor to its rules and traditions. Jack Nicklaus was indeed as honorable a man as any who ever walked down an emerald country club fairway.
So imagine my horror upon reading this honorable man wax poetic about Donald J. Trump, lauding his patriotism, his love of his country and its citizens, even as the rest of America had become traumatized by his racism, greed and psychopathic proclivities.
Surely the great Nicklaus could see through the farce. The scorecard was so full of ugliness, the kind that no honorable golfer would dare erase:
While at school, a fit Donald Trump procured 4 student draft deferments to avoid the Vietnam War. After school, he was again eligible to be drafted, but found a doctor who pronounced him unfit because of “bone spurs.”
But Jack says Trump puts country first and Jack is an honorable man.
As landlord, a young Donald Trump and his father refused to rent apartments to African Americans, leading the Department of Justice to charge him with violating the Fair Housing act of 1968. As president, he’s fomented racism, given the wink and nod to white supremacy groups, and otherwise made it plain he doesn’t care who knows.
But Jack says Trump has tried to help people from all walks of life — equally … and Jack is an honorable man.
Trump companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy six times, incurring debts by 1990 of over $4 Billion to over 70 different banking institutions. He stiffed contractors and working folks for millions.
But Jack says what is important are Donald’s actions and Jack is an honorable man.
Our own national intelligence services have warned us about interference in our elections by the Russians while Trump denies its existence. Russian military intelligence hackers — a/k/a Fancy Bear — the same ones at work in 2016, are at it again in 2020 attacking Democrat state party email accounts in California and Indiana. Social media has been infiltrated with Russian bots spreading misinformation. Incredibly, Trump stood up in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin and sided with the Russian thug over his own U.S. intelligence experts.
But Jack says Trump puts country first and Jack is an honorable man.
At Miller Park in Milwaukee where the Brewers baseball team plays, cars are lined up for testing, where one in four people will test positive for the coronavirus. Wisconsin is right now one of the world’s hot spots for COVID-19. It’s hospitals are at near capacity. Pleas by local officials in city-after-city not to bring his super-spreader road show to town were rejected by Trump, who insists we’re “rounding the turn.” His son, Donald Trump, Jr., says the virus has been defeated, that the deaths are almost “nothing” because they’ve got control of this thing. The President has politicized the pandemic at every turn, going so far as to say that Democrats’ talk of the pandemic will mysteriously go away on November 4. Yet, as Election Day approaches, nearly 1000 people a day are dying of COVID-19.
But Jack says Trump’s policies will bring the American Dream to many families … and Jack is an honorable man.
Donald Trump has viewed voting by mail as a threat to his re-election, so much so that he’s conjured the fantasy that mail-in ballots are ripe for corruption even as no measurable historical evidence of voter fraud in elections exists. Now that the lie is failing to take hold in America’s consciousness, he’s turned to the courts to do his dirty work.
The Supreme Court has ruled in Wisconsin, refusing to allow mail-in ballots received after Election Day, even as overseas and military voters’ ballots are not due until one week after Election Day. In Alabama, the SC ruled against curbside balloting during a pandemic. In South Carolina, the SC ruled mail-in ballots must have a witness signature. The Trump Campaign is suing to limit drop boxes in Pennsylvania, a state they are behind in the polls. Republicans in North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada are suing to make it harder to vote in those states. It’s called voter suppression.
But Jack says Trump shows a resolve and a determination to do the right thing for our country … and Jack is an honorable man.
Trump lackey Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General, has been directed to sabotage the delivery of ballots on Election Day by dismantling sorting machines and slow-walking the delivery of mail. The governor of Texas, following Trump’s edict, has limited the number of drop boxes throughout his state, declaring masks unnecessary at polling sites, all in an attempt to suppress the vote. For example, as of October 30th, a video shows a Miami-Dade, Florida post office — a county critical to Joe Biden’s vote count in that state — with a room filled with bins of ballots that have been sitting for over a week — undelivered.
But Jack says Trump’s love for America comes through loud and clear … and Jack is an honorable man.
Donald Trump packs crowds of his supporters shoulder-to-shoulder in one super-spreader event after another in state after state as a pandemic rages across the nation without concern for their health in a desperate attempt to save his flailing campaign.
But Jack says Trump loves Americans and Jack is an honorable man.
Over 1000 doctors and nurses, American heroes during this pandemic, have given their lives to save others, but Donald Trump has insisted doctors are actually making money inflating the number of COVID deaths.
But Jack says Trump has worked for the average person and Jack is an honorable man.
People inside the government who work for Donald Trump have privately expressed their alarm at his words, his behavior. They leak this information to reporters, but often will not come forward publicly, insisting they can better act as guardrails against his most egregious acts, because they see him as unfit for office, while they keep their jobs and future career prospects intact as their party sinks into the muck of corruption.
Donald J. Trump has been the most corrupt individual to occupy the White House in American history. Several in his administration have been indicted, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
But Jack says Trump loves America and Jack is an honorable man.
In six paragraphs, Jack Nicklaus invokes the American Dream five times. Whose dream is he referring to? He paints himself as just a guy from Ohio and a midwestern middle-class family. Maybe Jack should head back to his old hometown of Columbus, Ohio for some enlightenment. He could visit neighborhoods on the east side of town, like Argyle Park and see what the American Dream means to the African Americans who live there, struggling to stay out of the grip of poverty and COVID-19. If that’s too far out of his comfort zone, he could head over to the Short North and walk along the street and count the businesses boarded shut because Donald Trump and his Republican cronies wouldn’t provide the economic support to keep those small business folk alive or the federal support to manage the virus like our neighbors to the north did in Canada.
He’s unlikely to do either. The sad truth is that despite his “just a regular Ohio guy” protestations, he’s an very old rich white guy, who’s lived a country club life with other privileged, rich, white neighbors, all with ideas of the American Dream that are on a plane the rest of us plebeians could never fathom.
In a USA Today story, Christine Brennan reports:
In July 1994, while touring one of his golf courses near Vancouver, Nicklaus was asked by a Vancouver Province reporter about the lack of Black people in golf. Nicklaus, then 54, responded by saying, “Blacks have different muscles that react in different ways,” according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Aug. 21, 1994. Nicklaus also said he didn’t “buy” that he and other players could have taken stronger action in helping end discrimination in golf, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
Like Trump, the 80 year-old Nicklaus contracted COVID-19 in March, took hydroxychloroquine and claims doctors are scamming the country to make money off the pandemic.
I doubt many people in Columbus would see Jack as just the midwestern Ohio guy he likes to portray himself as today.
“For the Trump voters, the disasters he will bring on this country will fall more heavily on them than anyone else, Garrison Keillor wrote four years ago in The Washington Post. “The uneducated white males who elected him are the vulnerable ones, and they will not like what happens next.”
What happened next no one could have foreseen. Yet many continue to flock to his sideshow rallies, continue to open their wallets and and their souls to his snake oil.
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!
Perhaps this could have gone no other way for Nicklaus. Perhaps this is just the person he’s always been. Still, it’s sad. At 80 years of age, he stands in the middle the 18th fairway of his life having shanked his approach into the deepest of hazards, one even the greatest golfer of all time cannot escape.
