Republicans Buy Sneakers, Too

Michael Jordan, formerly of the Chicago Bulls, won the national championship in 1982 for the famed University of North Carolina Tar Heels basketball program. Jordan refused to politicalize his brand, which could have put at risk the escalating sales of his signature Air Jordan sneakers. Six years earlier, Nike had first unveiled the highly popular Air Jordans.

Unhappy with Jordan’s neutrality, President Barack Obama, looking to exacerbate race relations, accuses Josh Hammer, griped that MJ was not jumping at this opportunity.

Jordan didn’t take Obama’s bait and gave a flippant response: “It’s never going to be enough for everybody, and I know that. Because everybody has a preconceived idea for what I should do and what I shouldn’t do.”

“MJ” was spot-on and applauds Josh Hammer in American Greatness.

In today’s hyper-politicized era, it raises an obvious question:

Do Republicans still buy sneakers too?

Reflecting on Taylor Swift and her endorsement of Kamala Harris, Hammer wonders if the first-ever music industry billionaire has “cynically concluded that she simply does not need conservative or Republican patronage.”

Even more interesting is a response from Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City quarterback. A well-known secret is that Mahomes and his wife are “contemporary conservative power Christians.”

… when asked at a press conference earlier this week what he thought of Swift’s high-profile presidential endorsement and whether he himself would be issuing an endorsement of his own, stuck to Jordan’s neutrality position.

Do Your Own Research Before You Decide 

From KC’s Patrick Mahomes: 

“I don’t want my place and my platform to be used to endorse a candidate. … I think my place is to inform people to get registered to vote. It’s to inform people to do their own research, and then make their best decision for them and their family.”

Evidently, Mahomes understands something Swift doesn’t:

Americans routinely tune into sports games on their TVs and listen to music on their radios as a distraction from our chaotic news cycles and the political tumult of the day. It is not merely a commercial proposition—that Republicans might also buy Air Jordans, and pro-lifers might also purchase Swift albums. It is certainly that.

But it is also a matter of basic decency—of using one’s massive platform … to assuage, and not exacerbate, the domestic tensions that have brought our politics to a frenzied fever pitch. Swift’s endorsement won’t move the needle. But it is condemnable.