Social media sees all, and it appears that Tom Brady has publicly turned his back on President Donald Trump by “liking” several Instagram posts about Colin Kaepernick’s controversial Nike campaign.
TMZ reported that the New England Patriots quarterback “liked” multiple Instagram posts featuring Kaepernick’s new Nike ad. The images were shared by people like LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Kevin Durant, who have all publicly attacked Trump; as well as GQ, which outrageously named Kaepernick the “Citizen of the Year” in 2017.
Notably, Brady is not a Nike athlete; he has a partnership with rival sports apparel brand Under Armour.
Whatever the reasoning behind Brady’s “likes,” however, they are just the latest attempt by the five-time Super Bowl champion to publicly distance himself from Trump.
After placing a red MAGA hat in his locker at Gillette Stadium in September 2015, Brady first broke with Trump on the issue of national anthem protests in September 2017, when he called Trump’s remarks on the protests “divisive.” Prior to that, he skipped the Patriots’ White House visit in April 2017 due to “family matters.” Not coincidentally, Brady’s wife, Gisele Bundchen, has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s since the 2016 election.
Furthermore, Brady’s “likes” of the Kaepernick posts completely fly in the face of the public image he’s galvanized for himself: that of an all-American do-gooder who attempts to remain neutral on the issue of politics. Meanwhile, the national anthem protests spearheaded by Kaepernick are both politically and racially charged — and, as Tucker Carlson pointed out, now both Kaepernick and Nike are profiting from the blatant attack on the United States and law enforcement.
It’s an absolute disgrace that Kaepernick’s anti-American temper-tantrum is being held up as an example of heroism. In September 2016, NAACP president Cornell William Brooks had the gall to compare Kaepernick to Rosa Parks. But Kaepernick is no Parks; he’s a privileged multimillionaire who’s never known oppression, and never will – especially not now that Nike is throwing money at his “cause.” Unless Brady wants to alienate many of his fans, he would do well to distance himself from Kaepernick, too.
