Make The US Open Great Again!
America’s favorite tennis event is low energy. It’s #sad. The tournament needs its greatest local villain: Donald J. Trump.
As the tennis world saddles up for the 136th United States Open, I, too, ready myself for the traditions of my favorite Grand Slam tournament. I was born and raised in New York to a father whose love of tennis is so great, he made the most die-hard Trekkies, Beliebers, and Cheeseheads look like neophytes to their fandom. And, thanks to his uncanny ability to scope out the fairest ticket scalpers, we made annual pilgrimage to Arthur Ashe Stadium to revel in the unique Open rituals.
From desperate efforts to get autographs on ridiculous giant Tennis balls, to joining with friends and family to see the most promising young talent, there were many memories we shared. One, however, distinctly comes to mind in this political season of all political seasons; a New York custom I like to call The Booing of The Donald.
It’s kind of a Groundhog Day situation: Will The Donald make a public Open appearance or will he hide in his luxury box suite, eating alone from a $178 shrimp platter with his tiny fingers? Usually, the GOP nominee for President attends the Semifinals, foolishly pretending he cares about tennis — only to be met with a chorus of jeers once he pops up on the Jumbotron.
The Donald is unequivocally New York’s hometown sleaze ball, a man who has long occupied the space between neighborhood creep and the canonical 80's film villain: The spoiled yuppie with a nefarious inferiority complex. Unlike a shockingly large swath of #Murica, though — duped into admiring Trump via his ghost-written memoir The Art of the Deal or the pre-scripted reality series The Apprentice — most New Yorkers know Trump as the crass wealth-squanderer who failed with casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey and then tried covering up his poor managerial skills by smearing the Manhattan skyline with his name.
And while Trump has always been the butt of jokes (his spray tan and toupee are basically a clown’s makeup and wig), it’s been common Big Apple knowledge that the four-time bankrupt buffoon was a bad apple. Beyond the failures of his shady and/or chauvinist business endeavors, we all saw him for what he was: All hot air and short-sighted egotism wrapped up in grotesque cadence and appearance.
Nowadays, The Donald remains a diabolically cartoonish representation of selfishness — a real life Larfleeze. His life story —a spoiled brat who, over time, grows into a wrinkled, spoiled brat — has been a perfect folktale to teach us how not to behave. For New Yorkers, many of whom are still completely baffled by the fact that a major national political party actually nominated Trump to be President, it almost seems as if cosmic forces have aligned to make the village idiot the mayor.
In reality, Trump is Times Square, and New Yorkers booing him is our way of saying, “That’s not the real New York!”
Live sport is a stage and the crowd sways with the drama that unfolds upon it. It’s the fun of experiencing a story with others. Cheering and booing are part of the spectacle, and Americans love a good show. That’s why it’s no surprise that the U.S. Open is unique to tennis’s Grand Slams for its more playful nature.
The tournament is America’s — but more specifically New York’s — opportunity to bring people together through the joy of elite competition in the world’s most diverse metropolis, and that’s precisely why this year’s Booing, if The Donald shows, will be even more significant.
If there is one thing New Yorkers disdain, it’s someone who insults the city, be they an outsider talking trash or a resident misappropriating the City’s cultural identity and mangling it into something ugly. Trump somehow accomplishes both, pompously proclaiming New York his home, yet simultaneously crapping on what NYC stands for by incessantly alienating and disparaging immigrants, women and anyone else who disagrees with him.
The Donald’s astonishingly farcical “native outsider” personality is why it remains tradition to let him know we don’t accept him as a representative of New York. He is detached, living in his own glitzy reality with no regard for the city that raised him (or what planet he’s on).
The Booing of The Donald has become particularly relevant at the U.S. Open. Despite being considered a more egalitarian Grand Slam (particularly in contrast to Wimbledon), the tournament has become increasingly expensive and inaccessible to average fans. Thinking himself the pinnacle of class, it comes as no surprise that for years Trump has been trying to force himself amongst the ranks of “who’s who” at the Open. (Recent attending luminaries have included tennis legends Bjorn Borg, Billie-Jean King, Ivan Lendl and celebrities like Billy Crystal and Drake, who was in Serena Williams’s posse last year.)
Trump scooped up a luxury suite at Arthur Ashe Stadium as soon as leases became available in 1993, and has been attending ever since — some years more inconspicuously than others (a rarity).
Covering the reopening of the stadium in ’97, The New York Times wrote:
“It’s going to be a hot territory,’’ said Mr. Trump, whose suite (No. 247) is next to CBS’s on the mezzanine level on the end court. ‘’There’s a lot of business out there, and you have to create the right atmosphere to get it. Hey, it’s all about money.’’
Some may cringe at the irony of Donald Trump taking in the Open from a luxury box in a stadium named for the late Arthur Ashe, the athlete and humanist who won the 1968 Open and bristled at the sport’s elitist reputation.
And cringe we did.
In 2000, Trump attempted to pit Venus Williams against John McEnroe in an exhibition match he proudly advertised as a revival of the “Battle of the Sexes,” but he was soundly rejected and we cringed harder.
Indeed, we still cringe.
The flashiness, the immodesty, the crassness — everything about The Donald is antithetical to tennis. Trump’s presence at the Open has been a sore thumb sticking out, covered in kitschy gold rings that may not even be real.
Now, as the 2016 U.S. Open is upon us, much is on the table beyond silverware and glory. In Serena, we have an African-American athlete, possibly the greatest women’s tennis player of all time, continue to display her brilliance during a time when Black Lives are constantly being defamed and defiled.
The tournament will see representatives from countries and cultures all over the world assembled to congregate to compete, fairly and with honor, in the face of growing global nativism and intolerance. These notions are being spearheaded in America by a Republican Party that subsists on fear-mongering isolationism.
This U.S. Open is an important symbol to rally behind against the destructive forces that believe they have wind in their sails. I know New York will be there, watching that Jumbotron eagerly to show what we stand for — will the rest of America?
This U.S. Open, if the Donald shows, we won’t just be booing for the dismissible faults that have made him infamous in New York for decades. This year, the boos will not be ceremonial or instinctive; they will come from a very real place of frustration and self-inflicted shame. We let our village idiot escape, and as much as we’d always wished he’d just go, he does less harm with us than he does when he’s loose.
The Donald is an egotistical trickster, a con man ringleader on the warpath to make the United States as ugly as he is, inside and out. This year, if and when he finally appears on the big screen, my dad and I will be sitting up in the nosebleeds, booing with a simple request to America: Give us back our idiot so we can end this madness.
