{"id":44155,"date":"2025-05-07T12:53:41","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T16:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=44155"},"modified":"2025-05-07T12:53:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T16:53:41","slug":"white-house-plays-a-prophetic-name-game-with-kentucky-derby-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/05\/white-house-plays-a-prophetic-name-game-with-kentucky-derby-winner.html","title":{"rendered":"White House Plays a Prophetic Name Game With Kentucky Derby Winner"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_44158\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-44158\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/05\/Kentucky-Derby_credit-Adobe-Stock-Inset-X.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-44158\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/05\/Kentucky-Derby_credit-Adobe-Stock-Inset-X.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-44158\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adobe Stock | Inset: X<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amid over 147,000 fans, many adorned with Southern crowns, pastel tones, and bejeweled accents, Sovereignty won the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby. On the home stretch, jockey Junior Alvarado rode the 3-year-old past the Derby favorite, Journalism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the headlines varied from Alvarado following in the family business (his dad was a winning jockey) to the beloved trainer Bill Mott, 71, winning his first at Churchill Downs, another place outside Louisville started making its headlines\u2014Washington D.C.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth began the viral domino fall with this note on X:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Sovereignty &gt; Journalism.<\/p>\n<p>On the track. And in 2025 America.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeteHegseth\/status\/1918814421222126049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 3, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">t\u2019s no secret that the Trump Administration maintains an antagonistic relationship with most of the national media. The president\u2019s defense secretary&#8217;s public acknowledgment isn\u2019t surprising, but pouncing on the provided wordplay was rather astute.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The tweet also references<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/05\/trump-sets-aside-church-versus-state-establishes-religious-liberty-commission\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Trump\u2019s latest executive order<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> establishing the Religious Liberty Commission. Following the Kentucky Derby results, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was thinking along the same lines.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">In the Trump Administration, sovereignty will ALWAYS win.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Stephen Miller (@StephenM) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/StephenM\/status\/1918823101132849500?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 4, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, journalist Logan Clark Hall from The Blaze and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frontier <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">magazine created most of the interest in the wordplay by using the religious-fueled keyword: \u201comen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Sovereignty beating Journalism at The Kentucky Derby is just too perfect.<\/p>\n<p>Powerful omen<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Logan Hall (@loganclarkhall) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/loganclarkhall\/status\/1918806378455482450?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 3, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The claim that \u201cSovereignty\u201d beat \u201cJournalism\u201d is a powerful omen may be entertaining to write and read, but was it catering to the core of Trump\u2019s base, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/05\/trump-only-showing-majority-approval-numbers-among-white-evangelicals\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the White Evangelicals<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A substantial part of politics involves routine shots in the arm for rally cries and sustained support.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet, if Sovereignty was the omen in 2025\u2019s Kentucky Derby, the winners of Trump\u2019s other years in office could be slightly prophetic as well:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2017 \u2013 Always Dreaming<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2018 \u2013 Justify<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2019 \u2013 Country House<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2020 \u2013 Authentic<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What are the odds?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amid over 147,000 fans, many adorned with Southern crowns, pastel tones, and bejeweled accents, Sovereignty won the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby. On the home stretch, jockey Junior Alvarado rode the 3-year-old past the Derby favorite, Journalism.\u00a0 While the headlines varied from Alvarado following in the family business (his dad was a winning jockey)&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":44158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>White House Plays a Prophetic Name Game With Kentucky Derby Winner<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sovereignty wins the Kentucky Derby, sparking viral wordplay as White House officials link the victory to Trump\u2019s latest executive order.\" \/>\n<meta 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