Bill Bradley: Trump's Madison Square Garden rally sullied a place where real winners play with honor

On Sunday night, Donald Trump rented a basketball arena to make a speech. It wasn’t in Philadelphia or Milwaukee or Detroit. It was Madison Square Garden in New York City. Far from any swing state, but close to my heart.

As a New York Knick, I played professional basketball in the Garden for 10 years. We won two NBA championships. It’s a place full of good memories — for those of us who played there; and for the world’s greatest fans, who put their hopes in our teamwork and heart. For a lot of people, the Garden came to symbolize winning. For me it’s a reminder of the years of hard work that it takes to become a champion.

In short, you can’t buy your place at center court. You have to earn it. You have to be willing to put in the work, to see the best in your teammates, and to give up a part of yourself to advance a bigger vision.

That’s what we did every day. Our team was made up of players from all over the country. Black and white Americans from every possible background, united by one common goal and one common backstory. Each of us had spent our lives practicing, putting in long, hard hours alone — not for fame or power, but because we were dedicated to excellence. We didn’t want to be stars, we wanted to be champions — and there’s a big difference.

As anyone who has ever played a sport, at any level, knows, there are real values tied to the game. Winning takes discipline, individually and as a group. It takes unselfishness — no one player is ever as good as all five of you can be together. It takes respect — you have to give it in order to get it, from teammates and opponents alike.

There are no shortcuts. You have to earn respect. And you have to take responsibility for yourself. Other people’s expectations may carry you forward, but no expectations are higher than those you have of yourself. That’s how you win. That’s how you become champions.

Tens of millions of Americans learn these same lessons as kids. Think what your own coaches told you when you were growing up, or what you try to teach your kids today. Courage, discipline, selflessness, and respect for others are fundamentally American values.

Donald Trump doesn’t understand any of those values. He demeans them every day. That contrast was crystal clear when I heard him at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, turning the Garden into a cathedral of hate and spewing his divisive venom in the heart of a place built on the concept of teamwork and the values of the game. I thought, “He has no idea of what it means to be a champion. He’s just a spoiled rich boy who wants his way.”

I think deep down, a lot of the people who may have voted for him in the past know that, too — especially the ones who grew up playing sports. They know they wouldn’t have wanted someone like him on their team, whining, complaining, looking for someone to blame. They know he doesn’t represent what a leader can really be — someone who brings us together, looks out for others, and makes us all raise our game.

In the past, they may have looked the other way and voted for him. But after this past Sunday I hope they reconsider. I hope the contrast between their values and his is finally too much to bear.

Take the example of losing. As a kid, you learn that the first thing you do when you lose is congratulate the winner. It’s one of the most basic rules of sports — reality. But in 2020 Donald Trump not only refused to do that, he ran off crying that everyone else was a cheater; that if he couldn’t win, the game must be “rigged.” What would you think if you saw a child doing that? What would you tell your kids?

And it’s not only a question of character or style. It’s a matter of policy. I devoted years of my life after basketball to the belief that government can make people’s lives better, and that politics can in fact offer a chance to serve our country in a positive way. But Donald Trump isn’t interested in government to help others. He only cares about his own power and money.

You don’t have to take my word for it — just look at what he is doing, and what he’s saying he’ll do if reelected. He wants to prosecute his opponents and gut the civil service, so only his obedient loyalists control our future. He wants to purge our military and intelligence agencies and fill them with yes-men who’ll do whatever he says. He wants to cut taxes for billionaires and put tariffs on every import into this country, making low-income and middle-class families pay.

Dozens of his own former advisors have lined up to sound the alarm, calling him “unfit” and a “threat to democracy.” They recount him calling his own supporters “disgusting,” while then also praising Hitler.

Maybe that’s the message Trump was trying to send last Sunday after all. The news has been full of stories this week likening his rally to another rare political event held in Madison Square Garden — a 1939 Nazi rally of the German American Bund.

An American philosopher named Jason Stanley wrote a small book called “How Fascism Works” in 2018. Read it and you’ll understand what many think the Garden event was supposed to say — that Trump means to rule as an authoritarian, not as a president for all the people under the Constitution; that his vision for the economy is based on fear, not facts, on exclusion, not growth; and that no one who disagrees with him will be safe. Many Americans today have never lived in fear. If Trump gets his way that could change.

It doesn’t have to be that way. I believe that the fundamental values of America — the fundamental values of the game that every kid learns on the field, in the gym, on the court — can still prevail.

As people head out to vote between now and next Tuesday, I hope they can reflect on the things that sports has taught them in their own lives. I’ll be thinking about what made our Knick teams great so many years ago. Take responsibility for yourself. Respect your fellow human being. Disagree with them openly and honestly. Enjoy their humanity. And never look down on people you don’t understand.

For me, those are the enduring lessons of Madison Square Garden. And it’s on each of us to make sure they remain America’s enduring values, too. The ball is in our court.

Bradley, a former three-term U.S. senator from New Jersey, played on both of the Knicks’ championship teams, in 1970 and 1973.