For whom Patrick Mahomes and Caitlyn Clark intend to vote has absolutely no bearing on for whom I intend to vote, but sports columnist Nancy Armour apparently believes that it’s their duty to open their secret ballots to me.
Caitlin Clark, Patrick Mahomes’ bland answers evoke Michael Jordan era of athlete activism
by Nancy Armour | September 13, 2024Nancy Armour, from her Twitter profile.
Not every athlete can be LeBron James or Megan Rapinoe.
Remember Michael Jordan’s comment about Republicans buying shoes? There’s a long history of athletes putting as much space as possible between themselves and controversy, and what Caitlin Clark and Patrick Mahomes did this week was no different.
Asked about the upcoming presidential election Wednesday and who they might be supporting, both Clark and Mahomes dodged the question and instead found a safe space in encouraging people to register and to vote.
“It’s more than nothing, but it doesn’t put them on the front lines of the discussion,” said David Niven, an associate professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati who teaches a course on sports and politics.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Mr Mahomes and Miss Clark were not thinking about Mr James or Miss Rapinoe; perhaps they were thinking about Colin Kaepernick, and the activism that persuaded NFL owners not to sign him.
Mr James did himself no favors with his political statements, which only exacerbated people looking at him as an opportunist and a flop artist in the NBA. Miss Rapinoe’s political activism didn’t serve her or women’s soccer very well, either. The fact that Mr Mahomes plays in deeply conservative Missouri, and Miss Clark in very red Indiana might have contributed to their decisions, and Miss Clark, who has led the WNBA from near-obscurity to sold-out arenas when and where she plays, makes her hugely valuable to the league. Miss Armour was saying that it’s a shame the athletes weren’t openly supporting Kamala Harris Emhoff.
Clark’s Instagram account is now flooded with nasty comments from supposed fans who are upset she liked Taylor Swift’s post endorsing Kamala Harris. Mahomes is getting backlash both from people who want him to disassociate himself from his wife’s (presumed) political beliefs and people angry he didn’t defend them.
Perhaps Mr Mahomes disagrees with Mrs Mahomes, who ‘liked’ an Instagram post from former President Trump, and perhaps he doesn’t. That’s really kind of a ‘who cares’ thing as far as I am concerned.
We have a long tradition of a secret ballot in the United States, and while a lot of people, including me, are willing to tell others how they will vote — I will vote the straight sensible ticket, meaning Republican, over the blithering idiots, the Democrats — a lot of other people are not.
The Democrats have even tried to exploit the secret ballot, with comments that women do not have to tell their husbands or boyfriends how they voted, and that they can even lie and support Mrs Emhoff, when the men in their lives vote more sensibly. And when it comes to the presidential contest, it almost doesn’t matter: President Trump will carry the states in which Mr Mahomes and Miss Clark live, and it will not be close.
Outkick noted that Miss Armour did not support Tom Brady speaking out on politics, because Mr Brady supported Mr Trump. It seems as though Miss Armour is really only interested in athletes speaking out on politics if they happen to support the politicians she likes. Miss Armour was similarly upset when Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker spoke in favor of conventional, Catholic morals at a Catholic college. She just retweeted a post in which Mr Butker missed a kick, which said, “Harrison Butker is, once again, a little too far right.”
And she has taken the far-left position that ‘transgender women’ — meaning males who have deluded themselves into thinking that they are girls — should be able to compete in women’s sports. Neither her Wikipedia profile nor her Twitter bio say anything about her ever having played sports.
Miss Armour has, as we all do, the absolute freedom of speech and of the press, and she can say whatever she wishes. But the freedom of speech and of the press carries with it the freedom not to say something, and the columnist is just wholly upset that a couple of well-known athletes didn’t say what she wanted them to say.