Forgot Your Password?

New to The Nation? Subscribe

Print subscriber? Activate your online access

.nation-small__b{fill:#fff;}

Tiger Woods Plus Donald Trump: A Tragedy Made in the USA

Woods and Trump’s famous friendship is built on a shared knack for accumulation, vacuousness, and power worship. It’s as American as apple pie.

President Donald Trump embraces Tiger Woods after presenting him with a Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House on May 6, 2019.

For anyone who believes that Donald Trump, in his infinite narcissism, has no empathy for anyone other than himself, think again. He may project nothing but apathy or glee concerning the pain he’s inflicted on countless families around the world, including his own damaged, parasitic brood; he may threaten war crimes in a national televised address; he may promise to use federal troops to “force ourselves upon” Los Angeles during the 2026 World Cup; but he does genuinely seem to love golfing legend Tiger Woods.

The feeling is reciprocated. After Woods almost died this week—rolling his car, opioids in his pockets—his first call was to Trump’s direct line. According to police body-cam footage, Woods said that he made this call even before the officer approached his car.

What is this connection about? How does this openly ethnonationalist president—who offered preferential refugee admissions  to white South Africans while enacting unprecedented violence against Black and brown immigrants—relate to Woods? Woods, a trailblazing athlete who integrated countless country clubs, used to describe himself as Cablinasian—Caucasian, Black, and Asian. That is, until he got a call from Nike telling him that he was just Black. 

After that, you never heard the word “Cablinasian” again. Soon, the shoe giant released a commercial—based upon the iconic slogan of solidarity, “I Am Spartacus”—where a diverse group of children said defiantly: “I am Tiger Woods!” It was rebellion without a cause,........

© The Nation