Name: BenFred: President Trump's sports missteps should not be overlooked when analyzing election outcome
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BenFred: President Trump's sports missteps should not be overlooked when analyzing election outcome

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Subscribe with this special offer to keep readingLoading&amp;hellp;{{title}}{{description}}{{banner}}(renews at {{format_dollars}}{{start_price}}{{format_cents}}/month + tax){{tagline}}{{special_title}}{{html}}You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.© 2022 Lee EnterprisesShare ThisBenFred: President Trump's sports missteps should not be overlooked when analyzing election outcomeShare thisHere’s a question I hope one of the many political historians who will study this 2020 election can answer one day.What role did President Donald Trump’s stance toward sports have in helping President-elect Joe Biden get elected?Largely because of Trump, “stick-to-sports” became a popular rebuke for any member of the sports world who stepped outside their game’s well-defined lines.But Trump’s reluctance to stick to politics combined with his eagerness to inject himself into the sports world rarely seemed to help him.One recent example that will be forgotten is Trump’s attempt to become the savior of Big Ten football. He pushed for the league to play through the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is trying, but only after three of the five Power Five conferences pressed forward. If Trump earned credit for his Big Ten campaigning, it did not show at the polls. He didn’t win half of the states in the conference’s footprint.The example that won’t fade, though, is the fire and brimstone stance Trump took again and again toward athletes, coaches and teams who asked us to raise our awareness of racial and societal injustice in America. Trump’s instigative opinions on this topic, I think, will go down as the biggest sports loss on his presidential scoreboard.The president decorated his reelection campaign with endorsements from former sports greats like Bobby Orr, Brett Favre and Herschel Walker.But the list of his sports opponents was filled with more prominent names in the present. For some of these sports figures, the election was not about politics. It was personal. Trump made it so.Trump’s most vocal sports opponents included NBA star LeBron James, who Trump had questioned the intelligence of publicly; Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr and superstar Steph Curry, who Trump had publicly disinvited from the White House after the team expressed some resignation about attending a championship ceremony there; USA women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe, who Trump clashed with online; and many more.It was Trump’s 2017 labeling of NFL players who kneeled during the national anthem as a way to protest police brutality toward Blacks in America as “sons of bitches” that seemed to set the sports relationship during his term.The police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis this May gave Trump a chance to reposition his stance. Floyd’s death propelled cross-sports demonstrations that asked America to examine its warts. The momentum spread from predominantly Black sports to baseball and hockey. Even tone-deaf NFL leadership had an awakening of sorts. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who had helped push kneeling quarterback Colin Kaepernick from the league, admitted he was wrong. Trump never did.The president instead continued to connect athletes’ calls for social justice with an anti-military sentiment. It did not matter how many players or military members insisted that was not accurate. Trump ripped the participants, criticized the leagues and called for those who agreed with him to find something else to watch on TV.One of the most obvious examples of the sports world cutting its ties with Trump came when the president tried to protect his tie to Drew Brees. The popular Saints quarterback had been critical of the national anthem demonstrations before reconsidering and reshaping his stance. His audible included a presidential stiff-arm.“This is not an issue about the American flag,” Brees responded to Trump on social media. “It never has been. We can no longer use the flag to turn people away or distract them from the real issues that face our Black communities.”When it became clear that Trump would not be able to silence athletes or their leagues, his administration pivoted to dismissing athletes’ opinions entirely, whether they were taking a knee or not.“NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they’re able to take a night off from work,” Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law told MSNBC during the NBA’s playoff boycott following Floyd’s death. “With the NBA, there’s a lot of activism and I think that they put a lot of slogans out, but I think that we need to turn that from slogans and signals to actual action that’s going to solve the problem.”The problem for Trump was, actual action from athletes did follow.And much of it was aimed at the election.James’ “More Than A Vote” campaign enlisted some of the biggest names in sports and pop culture behind a nonprofit designed to fight voter suppression on various fronts. Close to 50 professional teams in the NBA, WNBA, NFL, NHL and MLB hosted election activities at stadiums and arenas to help give voters a safe and familiar voting venue during the pandemic. College teams across the country did not practice on election day so student athletes could vote in an election that broke records for participation.Do we know how all of these athletes and those they influenced voted? No.Do we know how many of these athletes felt about Trump? Yes.When asked in 2018 about the NFL player protests, Trump told Fox News, “I love athletics. I love sports, but they shouldn’t get the politics involved.”It would be interesting to know what this election would have looked like if the outgoing president followed his own advice.Get local news delivered to your inbox!{{title}}{{summary}}You don't have any notifications.Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.Topics

Get local news delivered to your inbox!Last chance! Subscribe with this special offer to keep readingLoading&amp;hellp;{{title}}{{description}}{{banner}}(renews at {{format_dollars}}{{start_price}}{{format_cents}}/month + tax){{tagline}}{{special_title}}{{html}}You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.© 2022 Lee EnterprisesShare ThisBenFred: President Trump's sports missteps should not be overlooked when analyzing election outcomeShare thisHere’s a question I hope one of the many political historians who will study this 2020 election can answer one day.What...

BenFred: President Trump's sports missteps should not be overlooked when analyzing election outcome

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