The woman who once told LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” after the NBA legend began taking a stand on controversial issues has apparently changed her mind now that the Nike is on the other foot.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham isn’t the only member of the MAGA nation to do an about-face after witnessing multiple players, including San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa, Las Vegas Raiders tight end Brock Bowers, and Detroit Lions defenders Za’Darius Smith perform the “Trump dance” over the weekend as part of their on-field celebrations.
“There’s no more stigma to being MAGA,” crowed Fox host Jesse Waters, reveling in the right wing’s admittance to the cool kids’ table.
But Ingraham, who once said, “It’s always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid $100 million a year to bounce a ball,” took the hypocrisy to a whole other level. She now believes the athletes are sending us a message of hope.
“If you’re gonna embrace (Colin) Kaepernick and the ‘end racism’ in the end zone,” Ingraham said Thursday during an interview with former wrestler Hulk Hogan, “I think a lot of these football players are, like, if anyone can end racism, or at least make progress, it’s probably Trump.”
(This may have been of particular interest to Hogan, who was overheard on his infamous sex tape using the N-word to describe a man his daughter was dating while acknowledging he was “a racist to a point, y’know, f—–g n—–s.”)
Social media users were predictably incredulous.
“White supremacy is going to help racism. Got it,” remarked one commenter on X.
Assuming Ingraham can actually read the athletes’ minds, one can’t help but wonder what makes them think Donald Trump is best qualified to end racism.
Maybe these jocks were applying a lesson from history, born out of a singular diplomatic triumph: President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, which was the first step in normalizing relations between the two countries.
Only a staunch anti-Communist like Nixon held the political capital necessary to normalize relations with China’s hardline Marxist regime, the theory holds. “Nixon goes to China” has since become shorthand for instances when a politician takes on a cause unpopular with his base or at odds with his ideology.
Trump is, after all, the president who found “good people” among the protesters who took to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting, “The Jews will not replace us,” claimed the nation’s first Black president was born outside of the United States; accused all Haitian immigrants of “having AIDS” and, more recently, eating household pets; and proposed a “complete and total ban“ on Muslim immigration.
In other words, maybe it’ll take someone accused, often credibly, of racism to end America’s original sin. Perhaps anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will come up with the next life-saving vaccine.
Some found the whole exercise useless because, as a commenter noted, “Racism doesn’t exist, right Fox News?”
Another reader noted Ingraham’s mention of Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49’ers quarterback who attracted widespread criticism in 2016 for kneeling during the National Anthem as a protest against racism. Trump, the commenter noted, was among his chief antagonists, which led to Kaepernick’s exile from the NFL.
“I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him,” the president said in a 2017 interview.
OK, so maybe we just misunderstood Ingraham.
“She means ending it by making it illegal to acknowledge and call it out,” explained one X user.
