Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor and former President Donald Trump are two peas in a pod

Of all the bingo cards, in all of the bingo-carded universes, none of them had Lawrence Taylor showing up at a campaign rally for Donald Trump.

This isn't the weirdest thing to happen involving Trump. That list is long. It would stretch across oceans. This was, however, up there. A Hall of Fame linebacker, who is a registered sex offender stumping for Trump, who was found civilly liable last year for sexual abuse. It is impossible to make this up but it's also America in 2024.

"I just wanted to say I grew up a Democrat and I’ve always been a Democrat until I met this man right here," Taylor said, speaking of Trump. "He will not have to worry nobody in my family ever voting for a Democrat again."

Taylor's former teammate, ex-New York Giants running back Ottis Anderson, was also at the rally.

"Don’t you just love that guy?" Anderson asked. "Don’t you just love that guy? I tell you it has been a very exciting day. You guys, not one person left here. You’re still here yelling and screaming. So my word is: Wildwood, are you in the house? I can’t hear you. Wildwood, are you in the house? Thank you guys for all your support."

The Twilight Zone looked at this scene and thought: I can't do much better than that. Bravo.

Trump having Taylor on the stage isn't the flex he thinks it is. Trump likely believes that Taylor might be able to pull some Black votes to his side. This is, of course, totally laughable. There aren't going to be a number of Black Americans who hear about Taylor backing Trump and think: "Well if L.T. is supporting him, then I will, too!"

Trump seems to only invest in Black people when he believes it has some type of political advantage. He did this when backing Herschel Walker – another famous Black athlete – during Walker's Georgia Senate race. That was an unmitigated disaster.

But there was something else that was striking about this moment in time, among so many bizarre moments in time during the Trump era.

Trump is attracted to villains and criminals, and while Taylor didn't start an insurrection, and isn't on the same level of alleged criminality that Trump is (few human beings are or ever have been), Taylor was one of football's true bad guys. To Trump, men like Taylor are his kind of person. They are two peas in a not-so-pretty pod.

On the field, Taylor is the best defensive player in league history, and he wasn't just a sack machine. He was a singularly destructive force that caused offenses, coaches and the game itself to undergo massive changes in order to try and negate his presence. It mostly didn't work.

Off the field, Taylor was equally destructive, but not to offenses, but instead to himself and the people around him. He was suspended by the league multiple times for failed drug tests. One of the lowest moments of his life came when he had to register as a sex offender following a plea agreement after being accused of having sex with a 16-year-old. Taylor said he thought she was 19.

"I could have changed a lot of different things in my life, but who would it affect, you know?" Taylor once said. "See, the things that I do wrong, they don't affect anyone but me."

Of course, that wasn't true. The damage he caused radiated outward like an EM pulse.

"Had he been able to get himself adjusted sooner, then his life would be better and the life of his family and the people who love him would be better," Giants' general manager George Young once said. "That's the sadness I feel."

Trump has his own ugly history. One part of it was the civil case involving E. Jean Carroll. Last year Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her. Carroll had alleged that Trump raped her in a department store in the mid-1990s.

Trump and Taylor have been friends since the 1980s. In 1984, while in the process of wrecking the United States Football League from the inside, Trump once offered Taylor a $1 million interest-free, 25-year loan that gave Trump's New Jersey Generals a future option to sign Taylor. In the end, Trump's gambit failed.

Now, all these years later, at a rally in New Jersey, Trump is again working with Taylor.

This partnership will flop, too.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lawrence Taylor, Donald Trump, two peas in a pod, rally in New Jersey