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With Tom Brady days away from playing in his tenth Super Bowl, a USA Today sports columnist has taken aim at the NFL superstar over his past support of former President Donald Trump.
In a piece published Tuesday headlined, "Tom Brady has gotten an undeserved pass for his past support of Donald Trump," Nancy Armour accused the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback of being "happy to talk politics until he wasn’t."
Armour cited the presence of a "Make America Great Again" hat in Brady's locker while he was a member of the New England Patriots and previous comments he made supporting his "friend" Trump before insisting it's no longer convenient to talk about the 45th president now that he's out of office and facing a second impeachment trial.
"How mighty white [sic] of him," Armour wrote. "Brady’s ability to enter and exit the debate at his choosing, to shield himself from accountability, is the height of white [sic] privilege. As this country grapples with the far reaches of systemic racism, look no further than Brady, for whom the expectations, and allowances granted, will always be different."
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Armour agreed with comments made by Pro Football Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe, who argued that someone like LeBron James would never get away with being associated with someone like Nation of Islam leader and famed anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan the way Brady has associated with Trump.
"In theory, it should not matter whether Brady supports Trump, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or someone somewhere in between on the political spectrum. He has a right to his private views," Armour wrote. "But it was Brady himself who chose to make those private views public. If you think that MAGA hat just happened to wind up in his locker – at camera level, not buried at the bottom beneath a pile of cleats and clothes – I have a case of TB12 supplements to sell you. Brady has carefully cultivated his image over his 21-year career, whether it be his style or his social media posts, and he knew just what kind of reaction he would get.
"Brady has had the chance – several, in fact – to clarify or walk back his comments and has chosen not to ... Instead, Brady has been allowed to divorce himself from it while Black athletes are made to own their views in perpetuity," she continued. "It might seem petty to bring up Brady's moral cowardice now, when the 43-year-old is accomplishing things unlikely to ever be seen again in the NFL. But celebrating what he's done while turning a blind eye to what he has not is a privilege Brady does not deserve."
Armour, who wrote a similar column prior to Super Bowl 51 in 2017 that insisted that Brady "has some explaining to do" and "no longer gets a pass on his friendship with Donald Trump," promoted her latest effort on Twitter, writing "Tom Brady’s politics aren’t the problem. It’s his refusal to recognize that his ability to enter and exit the debate when he chooses, to shield himself from accountability, is a privilege that Black and brown athletes don’t have."
Armour's tweet and op-ed received a hostile response from critics.
"What are you talking about?" PJ media writer Jim Treacher reacted. "Just because he allows himself to be photographed with Trump? I hate Tom Brady and politics has nothing to do with it."
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"140 million Americans over two elections voted for Trump - many of them black and brown. Your column is ridiculous," GOP strategist Chris Barron told Armour.
"Yeah you wrote this exact same thing in 2017 too. Your particular brand of amateur s---stirring for clicks is a bigger problem than Tom Brady is," conservative commentator Stephen Miller wrote.
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