Trump’s Patriot Games echoes earlier makes use of of youth sports activities as propaganda

Donald Trump is 80 years previous, and his ballot numbers, especially among young people, are as little as they’ve ever been. So his Patriot Games, an athletic competitors that the administration and its MAGA allies have been selling lately, is a little bit of multipurpose propaganda: a ploy by America’s broadly disliked president to look aligned with the youth and invested of their vigor.

One may need thought it clever for Trump to avoid teenage competitions given the controversy surrounding his conduct at the teenage beauty pageant he once owned. But extra lately the president has been keen to make use of younger individuals as political props, as he did in July along with his civics competitors (which has faced allegations of being rigged).

The president is scheduled to be on-hand in Geneva, Ohio, on Tuesday for the ultimate day of his Hunger Games knockoff, to award money prizes to the competitors’s winners. How’s that for a scene? America’s wannabe king descending into center America to reward a few youngsters after they’ve sweat it out for money in his corrupt, war-torn financial system. 

The competitors — dropped at you by Freedom 250, the corporate-backed group created by Trump allies to hijack the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration — appears to be largely a car for political propaganda. A Washington Post dispatch on the competitors spotlighted youngsters chanting Trump’s political slogans, donning garments advertising his political motion, and parroting his rhetoric.