Do Republicans Still Buy Sneakers Too?

In 1990, in the midst of a heated—and racially charged—U.S. Senate race in North Carolina between Republican incumbent Jesse Helms and Democratic challenger Harvey Gantt, Chicago Bulls superstar guard Michael Jordan issued one of his most famous lines. Jordan, who grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, and won a national championship in 1982 for the famed University of North Carolina Tar Heels basketball program, was asked whether he would endorse Gantt. Jordan’s memorable response, which OutKick founder and syndicated radio host Clay Travis subsequently adopted for a book title, was: “Republicans buy sneakers too.” Jordan, in other words, refused to politicize his brand and thus risk sacrificing sales of his signature Air Jordan sneakers, which Nike had first unveiled six years earlier.
It was an admirable assertion of political neutrality—a refusal to bend the knee to those mandating a stifling and homogenous political correctness. As Jordan would later tell ESPN during the filming of its docuseries “The Last Dance,” which aired in 2020, “I never thought of myself as an activist. I thought of myself as a basketball player.” Jordan’s neutrality from decades ago was criticized, during the ESPN miniseries, by someone who knows a lot about exacerbating race relations: former President Barack Obama. In response to that criticism, Jordan doubled down, effectively flipping two middle fingers to the 44th president: “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.”
As a lifelong college basketball fan of University of North Carolina arch-rival Duke and a 1990s-era childhood pro hoops fan of the Bulls’ perennially hapless Eastern Conference rival, the New York Knicks, I am loath to credit Michael Jordan. But in this instance, “MJ” was spot-on. In today’s hyper-politicized era, it raises an obvious question: Do Republicans still buy sneakers too?
Taylor Swift seems to think not. In a viral Instagram post earlier this week, the megastar singer-songwriter endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Citing a litany of left-wing pet causes, such as “LGBTQ+ rights,” in vitro fertilization, and the pro-abortion euphemism of “a woman’s right to her own body,” Swift concluded that Harris is a “steady-handed, gifted leader” who has earned her vote. Swift is the first-ever music industry billionaire, so perhaps she has cynically concluded that she simply does not need conservative or Republican patronage. It’s been at least a decade and a half since Swift sang something approximating country music, and she may simply no longer care about alienating the southerners and churchgoers who disproportionately constitute country music’s fan base.
Swift, who is dating Kansas City Chiefs all-pro tight end Travis Kelce, was on hand in Las Vegas in February to see Kelce’s Chiefs prevail in a thrilling Super Bowl overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers. She stood just offstage as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recognized star Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, for the third time this decade, as Super Bowl MVP. Mahomes is an evangelical Christian who has spoken about how he prays before every game to “thank God for those opportunities.” Mahomes’ wife, Brittany, furthermore, “liked” an Instagram post last month from former President Donald Trump. It is thus not a very well-kept secret that Kelce’s own quarterback Mahomes, as well as Mahomes’ wife, Brittany, are a contemporary conservative Christian power couple.
All of that makes it even more remarkable that Mahomes, 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. As Mahomes put it: “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.” Hear, hear.
Mahomes—like Jordan before him—intuitively understands something that Swift does not. 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 in order 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.
Let’s seek out celebrities who would elevate us and play into our better angels—not those who would tear us apart and tear us down.
Josh Hammer is Newsweek senior editor-at-large, host of “The Josh Hammer Show” and “America on Trial with Josh Hammer,” a syndicated columnist, senior counsel for the Article III Project, and a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation. Subscribe here for “The Josh Hammer Report,” a Newsweek newsletter, as well as Josh Hammer’s Subtext text message group. X: @josh_hammer.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.