A crowd booing President Trump at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., is the least surprising thing to happen in a long while.
But you would think otherwise based on how certain members of the press reacted to the spectacle of hundreds of baseball fans taunting the president Sunday evening during Game 5 of the World Series.
“Wow!” marveled Vox’s easily impressed Aaron Rupar. “Overwhelming boos for Trump when he’s shown on the scoreboard at the Nats game.”
New York Times contributor Wajahat Ali said elsewhere, “You’re in trouble when they’re chanting #LockHimUp the same day you announced the death of #alBaghdadi.”
“Where do cracks in [Donald Trump’s] impeachment defense begin?” asked former Wall Street Journal senior national correspondent Douglas Blackmon Sunday evening. “Well … a weak POTUS, already secretly viewed as an obnoxious disaster by most GOP Senators, booed loudly at the World Series … That makes a big impression on Republicans who already see their party being destroyed.”
Guys, come on.
There is no more hostile place in the United States for a Republican president than a major sporting event in Washington, D.C.
D.C. is notoriously pro-Democrat, a detail that is never clearer than when one looks at general election voting data. In 2016, for example, a full 90% of D.C. voters pulled for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In 2012, 91% voted for Barack Obama. In 2008, that figure was 92%.
Washington has voted overwhelmingly for every single Democratic presidential candidate dating back to at least 1964.
Then there is the issue of the Maryland and Virginia suburbs that contribute to the Nationals fanbase. These areas are like the capital itself: Overwhelmingly Democratic.
Virginia’s 8th Congressional District, which borders the district, is D+21, according to the Cook Political Report. Virginia’s 11th District is D+15. Meanwhile, Maryland’s 3rd District is D+13, while its 4th District is D+28. And so on.
In other words, Trump was getting booed at that stadium no matter what.
Any president with an “R” next to his name could show up at Nationals Park and they would still boo him.
Being shocked, amazed, and looking for deeper meaning in Trump being heckled at Nationals Park is like being shocked, amazed, and looking for deeper meaning in the spectacle of a Republican president being heckled at, say, a Hollywood function or the University of California, Berkeley. Being booed was always going to happen at that particular venue (and that is to say nothing of the fact we already have a history of U.S. presidents getting heckled at baseball games), regardless of whether Trump announced that day that U.S. forces had eliminated the world’s most wanted terrorist.
The only thing that is surprising is that anyone is surprised.
