Is Tom Brady a supporter of Donald Trump?
As Super Bowl Sunday approaches, a question that has almost nothing to do with football has returned to the headlines: How does Tom Brady feel about Donald Trump?
The Buccaneers quarterback displayed a Make America Great Again cap on his locker in 2015, when Trump was still running for president. When asked if he thought Trump could win the election, Brady replied: “I hope so. That would be great".
Since then, the athlete has chosen to remain silent about his political position, leaving some doubts about the meaning of those comments. He has been photographed playing golf with Trump in the past, and Trump's assistant Hope Hicks once said the two men "have a great friendship and have had it for many years." So was Brady really endorsing Trump as a candidate for office or was he just endorsing his friend? He will never tell.
It's that ambiguity that infuriates USA Today columnist Nancy Armor, whose latest op-ed has sparked yet another controversy.
"Brady's ability to get in and out of the debate at his choice, to protect himself from liability, is the height of white privilege," she writes. According to Armor, only white celebrities receive such a generous benefit of the doubt when it comes to political advocacy. Colin Kaepernick, he notes, is still being "ostracized" for speaking out against police brutality.
Shannon Sharpe made a similar analogy on her sports commentary show, Undisputed.
“LeBron James can never say, a prominent black athlete can never say, 'Minister Farrakhan is just my friend,'” Sharpe said, referring to Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam. "They would try to cancel anyone by the mere mention of Farrakhan's name."
Others have been quick to defend the former Patriot.
"Why does a professional footballer need to respond to the sports press for his political preferences?" Fox News anchor Brit Hume asked on Twitter.
To the Armor and Sharpe accusations, Brady has responded with more ambiguity.
"I'm not sure how to answer hypothetical questions like that," he told USA Today. “I hope everyone can… We are in this position, like me, to try to be the best that I can be every day as an athlete, as a player, as a person in my community for my team and so on. I'm not sure what else. "
