November 12, 2024
Nick Bosso and Colin Kaepernick brought their politics to the field, but they experienced very different consequences.
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Nick Bosso interrupts an interview with a teammate while pointing to his MAGA cap on Oct. 27, 2024.
(NFL/NBC)
On Sunday, October 27, nine days before the presidential election, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy gave an interview after beating the Dallas Cowboys. As Purdy spoke with NBC reporter Melissa Stark, All-Pro quarterback Nick Bosso cut into the frame and pointed to his Make America Great Again hat while looking into the camera.
While Bosa’s interruption was surprising, it was hardly shocking. Godhas been using the peacock for a long time as an outspoken Trump supporter in a world where players mostly keep their political views to themselves.
But Bosa flaunts a polarizing political slogan Sunday night football, the most popular TV program in the United States, just before the presidential election, was simply a bridge too far even for the conservative, if controversial, league. God was fined $11,255 for violating the league’s uniform and equipment rules, but considering he makes $34 million a year, the 49ers faithful probably won’t need to start a GoFundMe.
When Bosa wore the MAGA hats, his red and gold uniform brought to mind another athlete who played for the same franchise. In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, then a quarterback for San Francisco, also used his NFL platform to speak up for a cause he believed in. But he did not campaign for MAGA policy initiatives such as a violent mass deportation program or the right to shoot protesters or second-class citizenship for women. He took a knee to end racial inequality and police brutality.
Colin Kaepernick was part of the movement that was developing in 2016. It was a movement that was tired of simply asking not to be shot. Instead, he promoted ideas like “defunding the police” and tackling crime by giving more money to crisis intervention groups and mental health counselors. The Copernicus movement became a symbol of an imaginary world without prisons. And it scared the hell out of the Democratic Party.
The party did not rush to meet this mass youth movement, but ran in another direction. That meant Kaepernick was left adrift, his legs cut out from under him when he began to protest. He was also without political support. How Republicans feel about the image of Kaepernick on his knees in a blatantly racist, fear-mongering adDemocrats either ignored him or avoided protesting. Even the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg got into actioncalling Kaepernick’s protests “stupid and disrespectful” and saying, “I would have had the same answer if you had asked me about burning the flag.” He was kicked out of the league after the 2016 season. Colin is not fined $11,000. Only the potential loss of millions upon millions.
Current issue
Kaepernick’s lack of a political background reflects a growing backlash against the broader movement, as the doors open to Black Lives Matter activists began to close. Most of the “de-police” bills have stalled, and Joe Biden has undermined the movement by thundering “fund the police” in his first speech on the state of the Union in 2022.
This story of two footballers and two destinies is reminiscent of the words of the French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon. A man who Reuters called recently “The great fanner of the French hard left” had his own view on our elections. Mélenchon, who considers his political enemies a mass, said,
“The US could not choose leftists: there were none. If there is no left, there is no limit to the right. If there is no fight for the program, the election turns into a casting. Trump’s victory is an unstoppable consequence of this situation.”
— Melenchon points out in glaring problem of our politics. People overwhelmingly feel that we are moving in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, we do not have two parties capable of offering transformative change. We have one — and that’s the Republican Party, which abandons any principles for a shot at power. Any piety about states’ rights, balanced budgets, and fidelity to the Constitution are now mere bumps in their dizzying sled ride to autocracy.
While the traditional Republican Party, with very few exceptions, sprints to the right, the Democrats, wearing cement boots, clumsily try to follow suit by staying put. They were more comfortable courting this mythical creature known as “Democrat Cheney” than waging a political battle. Standard left-wing ideas such as “Medicare for All,” opposition to the criminal justice system, immigrant rights, and an arms embargo on Israel to uphold the cease-fire were not voiced. Instead, Mélenchon said, people couldn’t pick up a program in the left’s political opposition to Trump because it simply wasn’t there. The Democratic Party is not built for such a fight. It’s like asking a rooster to crow.
As a result, Colin Kaepernick has no political home in this world. There is no political home for an abolitionist, a striking worker, a student radical, a proponent of national health care, or a principled pacifist. They got stuck and lost hope. While Nick Bosa is probably getting ready for his tuxedo in preparation for the inaugural ball, Kaepernick is on the sidelines co-editing (great!) protecting black studies, instead of being brought to the forefront of the political battle to distract people from Trumpism.
We will need to build institutions in this country — in politics, media, mass culture — capable of fighting fascism. We will need to build institutions and movements capable of welcoming the Copernicus of this world in the fight against the Boss. We’re going to have to build because right now Nick Bosa is being unlocked and he’s not calling for peace.
We cannot retreat
We now face a second Trump presidency.
There is nothing to lose. We must use our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger to oppose the dangerous policies that Donald Trump is unleashing on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as principled and honest journalists and authors.
Today we are also preparing for the future struggle. It will require a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis and humane resistance. We are faced with the passage of Project 2025, a far-right Supreme Court, political authoritarianism, rising inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis and conflicts abroad. Nation will expose and propose, develop investigative reporting and act together as a community to preserve hope and opportunity. NationThe work will continue — as it has in good times and bad — to develop alternative ideas and visions, deepen our mission of truth-telling and in-depth reporting, and expand solidarity in a divided nation.
Armed with 160 years of courageous independent journalism, our mandate remains the same today as it was when the Abolitionists were founded Nation— to defend the principles of democracy and freedom, to serve as a beacon in the darkest days of resistance, and to see and fight for a bright future.
The day is dark, the forces are building tenaciously, but it’s too late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is just the time when artists go to work. No time for despair, no room for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we make language. This is how civilizations heal.”
I encourage you to support Nation and donate today.
next,
Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
More from Nation
Electoral math isn’t as bad as we thought. But the incoming Trump administration looks worse.
Conservatives supported Trump by a higher percentage than in 2020. And the time spent with Cheney prevented Harris from reaching the voters she needed.
With the re-election of Donald Trump, the president’s slide into dangerous power has reached a moment of reckoning.
The party has gone after former Republicans and wealthy donors while alienating most of the working class.
The party must ditch the consultant class and move to a local membership model that will help rejuvenate public life across the country.
