The Boobie Prize

 

Let’s take a moment, just a brief breath before the nausea kicks in, to marvel at the grotesque spectacle of Donald J. Trump, the self-proclaimed “peace president,” strutting around the Kennedy Center with a fake peace prize draped around his Turkey neck like a third-place ribbon from a county fair hog show.

 Yes, in a moment so tacky it should’ve come with a complementary spray tan and a coupon for hush money, FIFA’s Gianni Infantino presented Trump with an award that is not only fake, but professionally, institutionally, internationally fake, handcrafted for one purpose only: to keep the world’s most fragile ego inflated long enough to cash another check on behalf of his billionaire buddies. 

Infantino, groveling like a man who’d barter his spine for a seat at the grown-ups’ table, actually said:

 “Mr. President, this is your prize, this is your peace prize… you can wear it everywhere you want to go.” 

And of course Trump, the human embodiment of a participation trophy, slapped it on immediately, beaming like a toddler who finally got a sticker for not biting his classmates. Then Infantino read some Hallmark card nonsense about unity and hope, as if invoking dead children and grieving mothers somehow sanctifies giving a fake medal to a man who has spent his entire public life weaponizing cruelty for applause. 

Unity? 

Hope? 

Trump?

 Give me a break. This is the same orange cretin who tears the world apart by breakfast and calls it “leadership.” The same man who would sell peace by the pound if he could skim a finder’s fee off the top. A man whose guiding philosophy is: If it enriches my billionaire friends, it must be good for America. 

My disgust isn’t rooted in politics. It never has been. 

I’m not repelled because you vote red and I vote blue. I don’t think less of you because we disagree on taxes or trade or zoning laws.

 I think less of you because you watched an adult man mock a disabled reporter on live television and called it “refreshing honesty.” I think less of you because you heard him spit racism straight into the microphone and decided that was “telling it like it is.” 

I think less of you because you listened to him advocate for war crimes, for torture, for killing families, and still whispered, “Yes, that’s my guy.” I think less of you because you watched him reduce women to decorative objects, judged solely on appearance, and you nodded along like that was normal. I think less of you because you aligned yourself with cruelty when decency mattered. 

It’s not your politics that are repulsive. It’s your personal willingness to champion a bully, to excuse corruption, to cheer for division and hate because it scratched whatever itch was festering in the dark corners of your conscience. 

You and I won’t be “coming together.” Not forward, not backward, not ever. Not in this lifetime or the next. Trump disgusts me. But what will echo long after his gilded circus collapses is the simple, unforgiving truth: 

He didn’t disgust you. 

And that, that moral void, that ethical vacancy, is what I will remember in perpetuity, long after the fake medals tarnish, long after the grifters scatter, and long after the self-anointed “peace president” finally disappears back into the obscurity he always feared and always deserved. 

-Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition. -Michael Jochum