An unusual moment happened after the San Francisco 49ers beat the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night. Niners quarterback Brock Purdy was being interviewed by NBC when suddenly teammate Nick Bosa appeared, wearing a MAGA hat. And he wasn’t just wearing it. He proudly pointed to it.
Good for Bosa. He can make any political statement he wants. I love this. I love athletes freely expressing those beliefs.
With that expression comes examination. It was a highly unusual move. Players rarely, if ever, videobomb interviews to promote a political candidate. But Bosa made it an issue, so let’s take a look at what he backs, what he supports, what he loves so much that it was worth jumping in front of a television camera pointing to his MAGA hat when he wasn’t even being interviewed.
To do that, we need to go back in time for a moment. Not long. In fact, on the same day Bosa bogarted his way into Purdy’s interview, just hours earlier and 3,000 miles away, came one of the most disgraceful moments in recent American political history. Let’s go to the Donald Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night. There, lots of people were wearing the same hat as Bosa.
A CNN headline described the rally this way: ‘Trump loyalists spew racist, vulgar attacks at Harris and Democrats at New York City rally.’ This was the New York Times: ‘Trump at MSG: A Closing Carnival of Grievances and Racism.’ This was MSNBC: ‘With racist Madison Square Garden rally, Trump and his allies prove Democrats’ point.’ This was The Daily Beast: ‘Donald Trump’s Racist NYC Rally Was Vile. It Was Also Political Suicide.’
The Times described it as ‘a release of rage’ and ‘a vivid and at times racist display of the dark energy animating the MAGA movement.’
Sure, maybe Bosa wouldn’t believe the reporting. But there is no question about what happened. It’s all on tape. It’s all verifiable. It’s all also extremely horrible. Just a sewage system of ugliness and white nationalism.
This is what that hat Bosa so proudly displayed stands for.
‘Before the GOP nominee even reached the stage, the audience was presented with an avalanche of racist and misogynistic comments,’ MSNBC reported. ‘One speaker echoed a rallygoer who called Harris ‘the devil’ and ‘the Antichrist.’ Right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson joked that the Democratic vice president, who is of Black and Indian descent, would be ‘the first Samoan Malaysian, low IQ, former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”
This is what that hat Bosa so proudly displayed stands for.
One speaker made a vile joke about Puerto Ricans having too many children. That same comedian called Puerto Rico ‘a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.’ He also spoke about a Black friend that he ‘carved watermelons’ with.
This is what that hat Bosa so proudly displayed stands for.
Historians and others drew parallels to the 1939 Nazi gathering at the Garden. Initially, this seemed insane. The only thing you compare to Nazis are Nazis. But you know, after seeing clips of the event, and reading coverage about it, the comparisons aren’t crazy.
In the rally, Trump again referred to his opponents as the ‘enemy from within.’ Trump has called people vermin and said immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. Journalist Anne Applebaum, who writes about autocracies, wrote this in a story in The Atlantic called ‘Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.’
‘If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.’
This is what that hat Bosa so proudly displayed stands for.
After the game, Bosa declined to talk about why he wore the hat. Which, for a guy who is so tough on the field, was a massively cowardly move.
He doesn’t want to talk about it in more detail in front of the media because he would be asked detailed questions about why he likes Trump, and while he would be praised by the right, he’d be vilified in other circles. So he’s decided to take the gutless route which is show he’s a Trump supporter, while avoiding all of smoke that accompanies it.
Let’s put it this way: He’s no Colin Kaepernick.
Bosa doesn’t strike me as an intellect who wants to study the financial impact of the tariffs Trump would impose. I don’t think he cares about NATO. So I have to ask: What is it exactly that he likes about MAGA?
Also, what do some of his Black and brown teammates think of the man he supports, who describes immigrants and people of color as vermin? Or who pushed a racist lie that Haitians were eating dogs and cats in a small Ohio town? Putting innocent people’s lives at risk?
Do these players just ignore it? Do they say anything? Or do they just go along for the sake of winning?
What do they say when they see him wearing that hat?
The hat that Bosa so proudly sports.
