On last week’s show, Laura Ingraham could barely contain her glee when Harrison Butker announced that he had decided to go into politics. “It’s a move sure to drive liberals crazy.”
For those who don’t know, Butker is the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, best known in non-sports circles as the team that includes Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce. In addition to being the highest-paid kicker in the NFL and the owner of a very impressive beard, Butker also wears hats that a polite person might call “traditional” and a more direct person might call “Taliban.” You might call it “close to.” He basically believes that women should stay home, make sandwiches for their husbands, and take care of their children. In May, the athlete caused controversy by giving a commencement speech at Benedictine College, a private Catholic liberal arts school, in which he espoused these views. In the same speech, Butker also denounced “dangerous gender ideology,” called Pride Month a “mortal sin,” and rattled off a variety of other conservative talking points.
Butker’s Benedictine speech provoked a great deal of backlash, but predictably also made him a hero on the right. No longer was he just a man making millions of dollars to play baseball, he was a warrior bravely carving a new front in the never-ending culture wars. Sales of his jerseys skyrocketed.
Now, it appears Butker plans to ride his newfound notoriety all the way to the White House. Don’t worry, he hasn’t announced his candidacy for president yet, but we imagine the thought has crossed his mind, but he’s not ready to step into the murky world of political fundraising. I decided.
These days, everyone with a chip on their shoulder and money in their pocket has a Pac.
Over the weekend, Kicker launched a political action committee called the Upright Pack, with the goal of getting more Christians to vote. “Every day we see our values under attack: from our schools, the media, and even our government,” the website explains. “But we have a chance to fight back and restore the traditional values that made this country great. That’s why UPRIGHT PAC was founded.”
Butker announced the pack shortly after formally endorsing far-right Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley’s re-election bid. Hawley was filmed raising a fist in solidarity with protesters on January 6th and then running away from protesters who violently invaded the Capitol. He also can’t help but talk about the “collapse of American masculinity” and the supposed crisis of men retreating “into enclaves of laziness and porn and video games.”
Upright Pack’s website does not explicitly mention Donald Trump, but Butker told Ingraham on Thursday that he plans to support the former president because of his stance on abortion. Ta. “I think Donald Trump is the most pro-life president we’ve ever had,” Butker said. Things could get awkward in the Kansas City Chiefs’ social circle because of Swift’s support for Kamala Harris.
With only a few weeks left until the election, Butker’s new pack is unlikely to make a huge difference in Trump’s chances of winning. But no one knows what it will accomplish in the future. His decision to mobilize Christian voters through the Pac speaks to a broader problem of the excessive influence of special interests and influential individuals in shaping American politics.
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision loosened restrictions on campaign finance laws, allowing corporations and special interest groups to donate unlimited amounts of money to elections unless they coordinate directly with candidates or political parties. can now be spent. This paved the way for Super Pac’s funding vehicle, a flashy legal framework that allowed big (and often dark) money to be funneled into campaigns. Jimmy Carter called this legalized “bribery.”
Pax played an important role in this election cycle. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has spent more than $100 million on federal elections so far this term, and Congress’s most vocal critics of Israel’s actions, Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush, may have played a major role in unseating the seat. In Gaza. It also appears to have helped maintain support for the war. A Guardian analysis published in January found that in the first six weeks of the war, the politicians who most supported Israel’s campaign in Gaza were politicians who had benefited from donations. From pro-Israel organizations like I-Pac.
And I-Pac is not the only group to overthrow politicians. The FairShake Pack, a crypto industry-backed super pack, may have played a role in blocking Katie Porter’s bid for U.S. Senate in California earlier this year. FairShake, backed by crypto industry leaders, spent millions of dollars on ads urging crypto enthusiasts to vote against Porter in the primary. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has donated about $75 million to the pro-Trump America Pac in the past three months.
In short, Butker is surrounded by people. These days, anyone with a chip on their shoulder and money in their pocket has a Pac. It’s a must if you want to buy friends and influence elections.
And although Butker’s Pac is still in its early stages, it certainly seems to be gaining a lot of support. The owner of the Kansas City Chiefs said Wednesday that he has no problem with the player entering politics. This is interesting. This is because when athletes lean to the left, they are often criticized for becoming political. In fact, Laura Ingraham, who is overjoyed by Butker’s move into politics, told basketball star LeBron James in 2018 to keep his political comments to himself and to “shut up and dribble.” What you said is still fresh in my memory. In an interview with ESPN, he spoke about being black and a public figure in the United States. “It’s always unwise to ask political advice from someone who gets paid $100 million a year to bounce a ball,” she quipped.
Butker, on the other hand, is paid $6.4 million a year for playing football. And I never heard anyone on the right tell him to shut up and kick him.
