One of the stranger subplots of the Knicks championship run has been the odd relationship between the team’s fans and its owner, James Dolan (pictured above smirking like an idiot). For decades now, Dolan has been reviled by fans in New York and around the league, frequently mentioned in the Worst Owner in Sports discourse. For years, Knicks fans have assumed that the only way they’d win was if Dolan sold the team. Indeed, “Sell the Team” became a frequent refrain at Madison Square Garden.
Of course, all of this overrates the importance of ownership. As I’ve written several times, there is no such thing as a Good Owner. Owners are worthless parasites who exploit the value created by their workers, but that is true of owners as a class. The specific differences between one owner or another don’t really matter. Some owners are certainly worse than others (and Dolan truly is one of the worst), but even teams with the worst owners can be successful because owners don’t actually DO anything. Games are won and lost by the players, and the Knicks have great players – no thanks to Dolan, of course.
And yet there was Dolan when the team finally won, eager to accept the trophy from Adam Silver last Saturday. Owners always show up once it’s time to claim credit for the work players have done. There Dolan was again last Thursday, being introduced by Mike Breen at the parade as the team’s “championship owner.” I was a little surprised that nobody booed Dolan, but his speech was mercifully short. Still, he managed to really piss me off with one line: “I don’t need your vote.”
This line was clearly a shot at Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who gave his own rousing speech at the parade, and with whom Dolan has been feuding throughout the Finals. Dolan clearly cannot stand that the city’s popular socialist mayor has affiliated himself with the Knicks’ championship run. Saying that he doesn’t need anyone’s vote is a way of accusing Mamdani of pandering, of saying that the Mayor is merely a politician pretending to care about the Knicks to curry favor with real New Yorkers.
This kind of phony populism is infuriating, especially as it has become more popular and politically successful in recent years. How many times in the last decade have we had to watch some rich asshole stand up and say that politicians cannot be trusted because they “need votes,” and therefore are simply lying to get on your good side?
Instead, you should trust them: the people who are already rich and powerful, and therefore don’t need to lie! When Donald Trump runs for office or Elon Musk runs the government or James Dolan accepts the Knicks’ championship trophy, we are supposed to believe that there are no selfish motives. They are not trying to advance policy goals or increase their own wealth and power or fill some empty hole in themselves from being unloved; no, they are doing it out of noblesse oblige, some benevolent love of their fellow man. It is a SACRIFICE that they are making for the people.
What makes this so frustrating — and so successful — is that distrust of politicians is, of course, natural. Politicians DO lie, and it is totally fair to be skeptical of people seeking your vote. It is reasonable to be burnt out and cynical about the prospect of political change, to assume that voting is a waste of time, and that any politician who promises better things is just a huckster selling snake oil. But what we need is MORE accountability, not less. The problem isn’t that politicians need votes, but that problems don’t get fixed no matter who we vote for.
As a leftist, I have my ambivalence about voting (although less so after last night!). It is certainly not the cure all that so many sanctimonious liberals like to pretend it is. But when someone like Trump or Musk or Dolan tells you they don’t need your vote, it’s because their boot is already on your neck. When Dolan says “I don’t need your vote” what he is really saying is: There’s nothing you can do to me.
And he’s basically right. Ownership is so sacrosanct under capitalism that it doesn’t matter how much he fails, or what abuses he commits. Fans can chant “sell the team” all they want, but he never has to — and he’ll have you banned from Madison Square Garden just for saying it.
We want to build a world with FEWER James Dolans. Voting alone will obviously not bring that about, but you can be damn sure the rich assholes in charge, expressing their contempt for politicians who believe such a world is possible, are not your allies in the fight.