“Overturn this,” was the triumphant tweet from the Belgium team after they thrashed Team USA 4-1. The final salt was rubbed in the wound minutes after, when the Belgian players did a Trump-style dance on the pitch while star of the red-card turmoil Falorin Balogun walked dejectedly back into the US team’s dressing room.
The US started off in the World Cup as the plucky underdogs, something that doesn’t happen often. There was a spate of optimistic op-eds and polls that showed Americans were more interested and engaged in the tournament than they had ever been. People started asking whether this was soccer’s big American moment. And then Donald Trump got involved.
At this point, we should probably just concede that everything the president touches crumbles and turns to ash. Everybody knows the story now: a red card for Balogun that really wasn’t that controversial (many such red cards for the same offense have been given out, including one to England during their most recent match against Mexico); outcry from some American fans; a phone call from the White House to FIFA’s Gianni Infantino. And then, magically, the red card went away. That would sort it, wouldn’t it? Balogun would be allowed to play, people would respect America weaseling their way out of the rules, and quicker than you can say “U-S-A! U-S-A!” the World Cup would be theirs.
Except, of course, only Trump thinks that’s how it works. It was utterly predictable that this move, stinking as it did of corruption, would turn pretty much every soccer team — and fan — in the tournament against the US and against poor Balogun himself. The underdog instantly became the villain. Because most people don’t think that bending the rules because your country is bigger and richer makes you impressive. But then again, most people don’t possess that rarest of qualities: the reverse Midas touch.
The thing about the reverse Midas touch is that it isn't just bad luck. Plenty of politicians have unlucky days. Trump has an almost supernatural knack for taking situations that are perfectly manageable and transforming them into catastrophes.
A state fair during America’s 250th birthday, for instance. Anyone can run a state fair. It’s an uncomplicated exercise in retail politics: shake some hands, eat some fried food, remind voters that you're a regular guy who enjoys a corn dog as much as the next person. Instead it descended into headlines about crowd chaos and logistical failures.
The images spoke for themselves: huge empty spaces and stalls abandoned due to power outages, with a plywood arch thrown in there for good measure. It’s sort of amazing how no one thought to add more than one fairground ride, or to throw on some funnel cakes. It’s an achievement one can only manage with that special reverse-Midas talent.
Another awe-inspiring achievement, of course, was the much-vaunted overhaul of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. A cool $17 million to turn the whole DC icon green! Before it succumbed to an algae bloom, Trump's fixation on the pool invited comparisons with Narcissus. Afterwards, though, the more appropriate myth was, indeed, Midas in reverse. Trump insisted the fiasco was the result of sabotage. In a way, he may have been right.
And then there’s basketball. A few weeks ago, the New York Knicks were enjoying one of their best post-season runs in decades until the president arrived courtside. They promptly lost. Fans joked that the Secret Service had apparently forgotten to protect the team from the one threat sitting inside Madison Square Garden. The president departed — and the Knicks won it all back, just in time.
Before basketball, it was football. The USFL, which Trump pushed toward a costly confrontation with the NFL rather than gradual growth, collapsed shortly afterwards. Its failure, and the eyebrow-raising testimony he provided around it, was written up in 2018 as “the day Donald Trump’s narcissism killed the USFL.”
If a state fair and a couple sports teams are too low-stakes for you, then an Iran nuclear deal might be just the ticket. Trump came into office promising that he alone could negotiate a "better deal" than the one he inherited from “Barack Hussein Obama”. Instead he tore up the existing agreement, then found himself dragged into military escalation that left the region less stable than before. He reached this conclusion via the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and a global economic downturn. The art of the deal of making everyone objectively worse off.
This brings us all quite neatly to the business world. The mythology surrounding Trump — one that he has shouted from many a rally podium — is that of the master dealmaker whose instincts are infallible. The reality has always been rather different.
Casinos are almost impossible to bankrupt; Trump managed it repeatedly (don’t worry, though, he still made millions!). Trump University ended in a $25 million settlement after allegations that it misled students. The Trump Shuttle airline that he promised to turn into a “diamond” never became profitable. Trump Steaks — a low-quality product sold through shopping channels and a website — became shorthand for overhyped failure within two short years. His biggest business achievement is, undoubtedly, convincing everyone he did something worthwhile with his inherited cash while actually being forced to declare bankruptcy six times.
America didn't need special treatment in the World Cup. It certainly didn't need to reinforce every stereotype the rest of the world already has about Americans believing rules apply to everyone else. And the irony is that Trump rarely creates problems from nothing. More often, he pours gasoline on embers that might otherwise have fizzled out.
Balogun's red card would have been debated for a day or two and then forgotten. Every tournament has contentious refereeing decisions. And if every intervention you make leaves the situation objectively worse than when you found it, you don’t look strong; you just look like a clumsy saboteur.
It’s a neat encapsulation of everything the US has become under this president, with NIH cuts handing the future of pharmaceutical innovation to China, tariffs supposed to benefit American workers actually jacking up prices for US consumers, Russia leaving empowered after Trump’s threats to NATO, and tourism to the States in steep decline under his so-called leadership. The less said about his favorite British politician, Nigel Farage, suddenly being embroiled in a controversy surrounding financial gifts from a convicted fraudster, the better.
America was never going to win the World Cup. But when they lost, they could’ve done so with dignity. They could’ve done it without “the Trump curse” trending on social media. Instead, they did it with everyone laughing in their face.
Needless to say, Donald J. Trump's reverse Midas touch would be an extraordinary superpower if he confined it to America's enemies. The problem is that he keeps using it on America itself.
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