I have never liked Tom Brady as a person. This put me in a distinct minority of Boston-area residents, so I didn’t say it out loud much because it’s a stupid thing about which to pick a fight with friends, family and acquaintances.
As an athlete, he’s obviously in a class by himself. And I felt sorry for him during the entire made-up Deflategate scandal because it was clear he did nothing wrong and was being targeted by an NFL commissioner who was always jealous of the attention Brady received in popular culture.
I even started supporting, in my own small ways, the Patriots during this time because I had moved back to Red State America and it made the wingnuts crazy to say out loud in a public setting, “Tom Brady is the greatest athlete who ever lived.”
I don’t actually believe that, of course. It was just a way to get an amusing rise out of a certain kind of person.
I have always been confused that people in the Red State America hated Brady so much — it was partly the ultra-liberal Massachusetts thing, I guessed — because Brady is clearly, ideologically speaking, closer to Mississippi than he is to Boston.
He was wise enough, and financially savvy enough, to keep his mouth shut about this most of the time, despite his (and his coach’s) very public flirtations with Donald Trump — even after Trump was revealed to have racist, fascist tendencies. Brady and Coach Belichick did some sly stepping away from Trump after Jan. 6, but I’ll guess this was strategic more than it was that either man is no longer in Trump’s camp politically. I’m sure they’ll both secretly vote for Trump if he runs again.
So none of us should be shocked that Brady appears to be good buds with Ron DeSantis (R-Weimar Germany):
Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion, has for years been the subject of public affection from former President Donald J. Trump.
But according to Tim Michels, the Republican nominee for Wisconsin governor, Mr. Brady is now on texting terms with another Republican seen as a White House contender: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
Mr. DeSantis attended a Green Bay Packers football game last month and spent part of the game texting with Mr. Brady, according to Mr. Michels, who hosted the Florida governor in Green Bay and told supporters in Wisconsin last week about their time together. Mr. Brady first expressed support for Mr. Trump in 2015, when he was quarterback of the New England Patriots. He signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020.
“I took Governor DeSantis to the Packer game at Lambeau Field,” Mr. Michels told a gathering of the Lake Country Patriots, a far-right group, on Thursday at a brewery in Oconomowoc, Wis. The New York Times was denied entry to the publicly advertised event, but obtained a recording of Mr. Michels’s remarks.
Mr. DeSantis, who on the day of the Packers game had appeared at a rally for Mr. Michels and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, “had never been to Lambeau Field before and he wanted to go,” Mr. Michels said. “We’re sitting there, you know, we’re watching the game and all of a sudden, I look over and he’s texting and he says, ‘How do you spell Lambeau?’”
Here is a thing I used to say in Boston out-loud that got me in trouble: Brady will run for national office eventually, and he will do it as a right-wing Republican. Possibly (probably?) as a full MAGA right-winger.
People in Boston used to tell me I was nuts for thinking that. I don’t think so many of them think it’s crazy any longer.
Plus they all hate Brady now because he went to Florida, so Brady’s former supplicants in New England all talk shit about him anyway.
