In the shadow of Trump’s victory, a high school football game gives me hope | Opinion

Most of this column was written prior to Donald Trump’s reelection to the presidency, but then amended before submission to acknowledge the election result. As you know from reading this column, I have grown weary over the years of Trump’s verbal assaults and murderous threats against his opponents. I tried to find spaces on radio, TV and the rest of life where Trump’s diatribes were absent from my daily existence.

I found one of the best escapes recently in anywhere America where I attended a high school football game. I watched my grandson grow up in his sports world, usually on the pitcher’s mound, so I was delighted when he brightened his horizons and signed up for the marching band playing both the saxophone and the Bass 5 drum. (That’s the largest drum on the field, quite capable of making the most noise, an imperative at a Friday night football game.) Marching bands and Friday night football games never occupied many of my recreational hours, but it’s a different story when it was my grandson and his marching band winning statewide awards for its brilliant programming. I was all in.

The thought that I was exiting the real world of the 2024 campaign just over two weeks from the election and entering a space devoid of yard signs, pundits, pollsters and campaign commercials never occurred to me, but when I took my seat in the stands filled with students, parents, grandparents and extended family, all there to root for the home team, it just set my world right. Cheerleaders pumping up the fans, a dance team in synchronized perfection and a boisterous student section managed to rev up even the most mellow of fans. There could be no doubt who was there to root for the home team. A few folks showed up for the visiting team but nowhere near the crowd on the other side of the field.

There was something all-American about the evening, commencing with the “Star-Spangled Banner” and continuing with my grandson and his fellow drummers leading the football team onto the field like a general leading his troops into battle. Before the kickoff, the co-captains of each team shook hands in the middle of the field.

I must admit I did think back at that moment to the Trump/Harris debate. As the two candidates walked onstage to their respective places, Harris crossed center stage to shake the hand of who appeared to be a surprised Trump who looked as though he had no intention of shaking her hand and showing the slightest degree of “sportsmanship”, shall we call it, or just a bit of respect for the opposition as the high school football captains demonstrated, so foreign to the Trump demeanor.

Meanwhile, back at the football game, the announcer welcomed everyone and, to my surprise, led off with a few reminders to the fans as to what was acceptable behavior and what was not. He warned fans that only positive cheers were allowed and those engaging in negativity would be removed from the stands. He closed with a line about how inclusiveness was a value and practice the high school took seriously, a downright dirty word in the Trump lexicon.

Then it hit me. I was experiencing a tradition that pre-dates Trump’s entry into our politics. Without question, he has changed the ground game of our lives as he has taught his MAGA rallies how to insult the handicapped, how to ridicule opponents, how to spew vulgarity from the podium and how to aim at a free press with death threats. One of Trump’s triumphs is the way he has downgraded our civic conversations, so we don’t even know how to agree to disagree with family and friends. Conversations are just shut down at the dinner table.

Then it hit me again. Trump would be kicked out of the high school football game in America anywhere high schools subscribe to what I experienced that Friday night. The man who has become President of the United States once again could not pass muster at a high school football game. His vulgar language and gestures he used throughout the campaign would have him watching the game through the fence. This man who is the essence of negativity would be singled out for unsportsmanlike conduct unacceptable at a high school football game and would be escorted to the exit gate.

And then I thought of the students in the stands that Friday night listening to the announcer remind them what of what was not acceptable behavior as fans of a football game. They would head for home after the game, turn on the TV and listen to reports of Trump at his MAGA rallies where he regularly descends into behavior they just heard the announcer at the football game label unacceptable.

The fans that night, including the students, behaved like model citizens, but how does that one brief encounter at the football game compare to the hours of TV time Trump used over the years to teach Americans how to insult, threaten and lie their way through life and career. What impact does that have on impressionable young people who deserve to hear a more positive version of how to deal with our adversaries?

So where do we go from here? We must never give up on improving the way we treat each other in the public square. There must be a loyal opposition that continues to check the work of what appears to be a clean sweep of Republican control in all three branches of government.

First and foremost, we can accept and legitimize a free and free election in which the American people have spoken. (This is a difficult pill to swallow given how often Trump attacked election officials and questioned free and fair elections.) We must learn from this election just how responsive and sensitive our democracy is to the will of the people. Democrats can learn what went wrong and rethink how its policies missed the mark of relating to the average American. The Democratic Party’s excessive devotion to pronouns not the pocketbook is just one example where they paid a price at the polls.

Second, there can be a continuing commitment to reject the politics and language of division and crudity for those with whom we disagree. The loyal opposition plays a crucial role in democratic government, but it does not deserve the scorn Trump has leveled at it since his arrival on the scene. Let’s hope there is an ounce of civility that emerges from his victory, and he takes the podium on inauguration day to ask for reconciliation not revenge for a nation that remains deeply divided against itself.

That will take a measure of the man he has not yet demonstrated to Americans, but we must remain hopeful as President Ronald Reagan was when he rephrased the words of the Puritan pilgrim, John Winthrop, in his famous City on a Hill speech. He spoke of a “tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace...” So be it for America someday.

Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Readers Corner on Boise State Public Radio and is a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.