Perhaps all you need to know about the proposed Enhanced Games, billed as an Olympic-style competition in which athletes will be permitted—even encouraged—to engage in doping, is that the Trump family reportedly is involved.

The envisioned project amounts to a gold-digging form of roguish entertainment, a poke-in-the-eye of the elite athletic establishment, a dismissal of long-honored sports values. It amounts to an assault on ethical, moral, safety and health standards, and is closer to an AI-generated production than one emphasizing human talent, dedication and achievement. Real fake news.

It is hardly a surprise that international anti-doping officials have called the Enhanced Games’ grotesque format a “clown show” that mocks fair play and argue that it will not only ruin athletes’ health but also their careers in real sports. Even as the brainchild of the Enhanced Games—Australian-born, London-based businessman Aron D’Souza—insists that his event will be “one of the most-watched sporting events in history” and will “capture the global imagination.”

The first Enhanced Games are to be staged over four days next May in—naturally—Las Vegas, well known for legalized gambling, widespread adult entertainment and a general tolerance of vices unacceptable in most respectable venues. (Although there is a Las Vegas law against riding camels on local highways.) Competitors in swimming, track and weightlifting will be given full access to drugs and therapies otherwise banned throughout the traditional sports world.

Promoters call this twisted creation a revolution, an embrace of a future in which pharmaceutical and technological juicing will be normalized. Their plan says nothing about tradeoffs regarding the fundamental integrity of sport, the level-playing field ideal—not to mention the negative influence on youth who would potentially be encouraged to engage in dangerous practices in pursuit of their sporting dreams.

The whole thing is so 2025, another rejection of institutional norms. No longer afoot, apparently, is the kind of widespread outrage that was triggered at the 1988 Seoul Olympics when Canadian sprint champion Ben Johnson was busted for steroid use after his record-setting 100-meter victory. At the time, International Olympic Committee member Anita DeFrantz—herself a former Olympic rower—summed up what she called a sadness “that an athlete of such stature was, essentially, a coward. The basic issue here is whether an athlete has the courage to compete on his own, without using a crutch. To use drugs is cowardly. It’s cheating. It’s disgusting. It’s vile.”

But now the Enhanced Games promises $1 million bonuses for world-record times from athletes powered by performance-boosting drugs. (“Under medical supervision,” the EG blueprint is quick to stipulate. As if that makes it any less nefarious.)

Funding, according to a report in The Guardian, is coming from 1789, a firm led by Donald Trump, Jr., and his partners; from a hedge fund with stakes in cryptocurrency and AI ventures. The involvement of Trump-aligned investors is described by D’Souza as a natural fit. “I’ve had the great fortune of working alongside many members of the administration and other prominent figures of the Trump movement over the years,” he said in February. “To know that some of the most significant figures in American social and political life support the Enhanced Games is more important to us than any investment.”

This clearly is a perverted model of conventional competition, but perhaps D’Souza could argue for public acceptance based on how professional wrestling has thrived for decades—in spite of its history of being steroid-fueled (and choreographed). A rationale put forth by EG backers is that, by openly inviting athletes to dope, they are dispensing with the hypocrisy of jocks in various high-profile sports who haven’t necessarily toed the line against prohibited substances, and somehow rectifying the failures of anti-doping police to thoroughly root out the cheats.

As long ago as the 1970s, there was an American Olympic weightlifter named Mark Cameron who suggested that, if his fellow competitors were told that eating scouring pads would make them stronger, there would not be a clean pot within miles of any gym. Ben Johnson’s drug guru, Jamie Astaphan, told a federal Canadian inquiry in the wake of Johnson’s 1988 Olympic disqualification that “everyone” was doping, and that a drug-free Canadian Olympic team “wouldn’t even come in last” in global competition. The old “if you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’” excuse.

At least, though, major sports organizations have continued with and enhanced (sorry for the word choice) their anti-doping efforts. There still are rules, still attempts at law and order. Still guardrails.

Silly, according to D’Souza. Outdated limitations. His vision, launched from a suburb of the fringe, is to create “superhumanity.”

Nothing about it will be on the level.