Donnie Ruins Everything
The New York Knicks are in the NBA Finals.
For most cities, that would be enough. After decades of waiting, New York should be talking about basketball. Fans should be arguing about matchups, celebrating victories, packing watch parties, and experiencing the kind of collective joy that sports uniquely create. The Knicks are hosting their first NBA Finals home game in twenty-seven years, a once-in-a-generation moment for a city that has waited decades to see its team return to this stage.
The World Cup is approaching.
Soon, millions of people from around the globe will gather in stadiums, crowd around televisions, and travel across continents to participate in the largest sporting event on Earth. The World Cup is one of the few events capable of temporarily shrinking the world. Different languages, different cultures, different religions, different political systems, and different histories all converge around a shared love of sport.
And next month, the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a collection of imperfect colonies declared independence from a king and launched an experiment in self-government that many believed would fail. Through civil war, economic collapse, political upheaval, social transformation, triumphs, failures, and countless contradictions, the country somehow survived long enough to reach this milestone. Whether someone views America with pride, frustration, hope, or concern, 250 years is still a remarkable anniversary.
These should be celebrations. The Knicks should be about basketball. The World Cup should be about soccer. America's 250th birthday should be about America. Instead, all three have somehow become stories about Donald Trump.
That is the thing about narcissists. They cannot simply participate in a moment. They cannot simply attend an event, share a stage, or celebrate something that belongs to someone else. Every spotlight becomes their spotlight. Every conversation becomes their conversation. Every story becomes their story. Eventually, everything around them begins orbiting their ego.
The Knicks are experiencing that reality right now. What should have been a citywide celebration has been transformed into a major security operation surrounding Donald Trump's attendance. Public watch parties outside Madison Square Garden have been canceled. Multi-block security perimeters have been established around the arena. Roads have been closed. Pedestrian traffic has been restricted. Fans have been instructed to arrive hours early. Enhanced screening procedures have been implemented. Conversations that should have been centered on basketball are instead focused on navigating the disruption caused by one man's presence.
This is New York's biggest basketball moment in nearly three decades. Yet even this moment could not simply belong to Knicks fans.
Then came Trump's comments about ticket prices. When concerns were raised about ordinary fans being priced out of Finals tickets, Trump brushed off the criticism by suggesting people could simply watch the game on television. The response captured something larger than a disagreement about sports. It reflected a familiar pattern of dismissing the experiences of ordinary people while remaining completely detached from the reality they are facing.
The World Cup tells a similar story on a much larger scale.
The tournament is supposed to bring the world together. That is the entire point. It is not merely a sporting competition. It is a global gathering of players, coaches, journalists, supporters, families, and communities. It is one of the few events that genuinely belongs to everyone. Instead, people from around the world are finding themselves locked out, largely because of travel restrictions, visa barriers, and geopolitical tensions tied to Donald Trump's policies and, in Iran's case, the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran.
Iranian players reportedly received visas at the last minute, but numerous members of the country's delegation, including key managerial and administrative staff, were denied entry. The uncertainty surrounding visas, combined with tensions stemming from the conflict between the United States and Iran, reportedly forced the team to relocate its base to Tijuana, Mexico, where it now travels into the United States only on match days. Iranian supporters and journalists have faced widespread travel restrictions and visa denials that have made participation extraordinarily difficult.
Supporters and personnel from Haiti have faced severe barriers linked to Trump's travel restrictions and visa policies. Fans and delegates from Senegal and Ivory Coast have encountered high refusal rates, travel obstacles, and diplomatic hurdles tied to the administration's broader restrictions on entry from multiple countries. South Africa's national team reportedly experienced delays after players and essential support staff struggled to secure travel authorization. Journalists from multiple countries have faced significant challenges obtaining the visas and credentials necessary to cover the tournament.
The result is not merely inconvenience. The result is a smaller World Cup. A less accessible World Cup. A less global World Cup. An event specifically designed to bring people together is becoming harder for entire groups of people to participate in.
And then there is America's 250th birthday. The anniversary of the United States should not belong to Republicans. It should not belong to Democrats. It should not belong to any president, administration, political party, or political movement. It should belong to Americans.
Yet even this celebration is increasingly being pulled into Donald Trump's orbit. Across the country, criticism has grown over efforts that many see as transforming a national anniversary into another political spectacle centered around one individual. Competing events have emerged. Controversies have erupted around programming and performances. Large rallies have become intertwined with commemorations that were supposed to celebrate the country itself.
In some cases, the lines are becoming so blurred that celebrations surrounding America's 250th anniversary will coincide with celebrations of Trump's own birthday, making it increasingly difficult to tell where the country ends and the personal branding begins.
Perhaps nothing captures this transformation more clearly than Trump's decision to turn part of America's 250th anniversary into a UFC spectacle on the White House lawn. A massive arena structure has been erected on the South Lawn for the event, and Trump recently compared the temporary structure to the Eiffel Tower, noting that the famous Paris landmark was also supposed to be temporary before joking that perhaps the UFC arena should never be taken down.
Think about how bizarre that is for a moment.
The White House is supposed to symbolize the presidency, the Constitution, and the continuity of American democracy. Yet during a celebration marking 250 years of the American experiment, the conversation has shifted toward cage fights, arena lighting, celebrity appearances, and whether a UFC structure should become a permanent feature of the White House grounds.
The Knicks do not belong to Donald Trump. The World Cup does not belong to Donald Trump. America's 250th birthday does not belong to Donald Trump.
Yet somehow he has inserted himself into all three.
That is what narcissism does. It is not satisfied with having its own stage. It demands every stage. It is not content being part of the story. It insists on becoming the story. It takes moments that belong to everyone else and redirects them toward itself.
For years, many people confused this behavior with strength. They confused self-obsession with confidence and attention-seeking with leadership. What they are seeing now is the reality. Narcissism does not build communities. It does not strengthen institutions. It does not unite people. It consumes attention, absorbs energy, and gradually shrinks everything around it.
The Knicks lose part of their moment. The World Cup loses part of its openness. America loses part of a celebration that should belong to all of us.
And perhaps that is Donald Trump's greatest talent. Not building things. Not bringing people together. Not creating moments worth remembering. But taking moments that belong to everyone else and making them about himself. The tragedy is not what that says about Donald Trump.
The tragedy is everything the rest of us lose because of it.
A Note From Me:
This Substack is reader-supported. If you value this work and want to help me get closer to doing it full-time, please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5 a month. I will never put my writing behind a paywall because I believe information should be accessible to everyone, but paid subscriptions help make this work sustainable and allow me to keep showing up every day.
— Judith
Sources:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-wheels-out-cringe-new-performers-after-failed-concert/
https://apnews.com/article/nba-finals-trump-knicks-security-249fcd4e50d3bfa064dabd11246feda3
https://apnews.com/article/nba-finals-trump-knicks-new-york-7b43bea56ff57b48f72d365efd1b7ddb
https://gothamist.com/news/knicks-game-3-guidance-arrive-early-and-without-a-bag-at-msg
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-ufc-fight-white-house-combines-punches-politics-2026-06-05/
https://www.cfr.org/articles/the-u-s-is-co-hosting-the-world-cup-but-much-of-the-world-cant-attend
https://evrimagaci.org/gpt/political-tensions-and-security-fears-shadow-2026-world-cup-536047
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/trump-250-truth/687384/
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-july-4th-fair-cancellations/
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5902574-trump-rally-america-250/
This is so well written. It really puts my feelings towards these events into words. You really have a unique talent and style that really taps into your readers, hearts and minds
Someone asked why Trump was going to the Knicks game (if/when) he was just going to get booed. I said “a narcissist, especially a malignant narcissist, welcomes ANY kind of attention…good or bad.” Everything Trump touches dies. 😡