When New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart suffered a season-ending knee injury this week, we knew there’d be two reactions from the overwhelmingly liberal sports media.
First, they’d call for the Giants to sign Colin Kaepernick. They do it whenever an NFL team loses a quarterback, even though Kaepernick has not played professional football in a decade.
Second, they’d mock Dart’s injury because he made headlines in May by introducing President Donald Trump at a New York City event.
Both reactions materialized almost immediately.
DAN LE BATARD DEMANDS THE MEDIA MAKE JAXSON DART ‘UNCOMFORTABLE’ FOR INTRODUCING TRUMP
Sports blogger Mike Florio was the first to urge the Giants to sign Kaepernick. Elsewhere, the usual suspects framed Dart’s injury as political karma.
“Media types say ‘Trump Curse’ has struck again,” wrote HuffPost in an article referring to Dart as a “Trump admirer.”
“The f—–g Trump curse strikes again,” wrote Tara Setmayer, a former GOP communications director on Capitol Hill and CNN commentator, about Dart’s injury on X.
Film and TV critic John Rocha shared a photo of Trump and Dart’s interaction, writing, “Everything he touches, y’all. Everything he touches…”
Ron Filipkowski, the partisan editor of the anti-Trump outlet MeidasTouch, claimed he had predicted Dart’s injury after the quarterback appeared with Trump.
“This was the moment I decided not to draft Dart in fantasy football. He had no chance this season after the Trump Curse,” he wrote above a clip of Dart and Trump.
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Other outlets adopted a similar tone.
“Jaxson Dart’s injury reignites Trump sports curse possibility,” joked USA Today.
The people making these jokes will insist they are harmless. Perhaps some of them believe that. But they know exactly what they are doing and how their majority anti-Trump audiences will respond.
Look at the comments under The Athletic’s report about Dart’s season-ending injury. The comment section resembles a fringe political message board, with readers celebrating the injury, asking whether Dart is “vaxxed” and claiming that he deserves this because he supported Trump.
Interestingly, we do not know whether Dart is a Trump supporter.
Yes, he introduced Trump at an event. But introducing the sitting president is not, on its face, a political statement. The event also took place in the city where Dart plays quarterback. For all we know, Dart would have accepted the same opportunity if a Democrat were in the White House.
Despite what the legacy media tells you, some Americans would welcome the chance to associate with the president regardless of their political views. In fact, we suspect most Americans fall into that category.
That said, we can probably deduce that Dart doesn’t consider Trump a Nazi. And that is enough for some in the media to call him “MAGA” and poke fun at his injury.
There’s a trend.
In 2020, then-ESPN commentator Mark Jones shared posts mocking 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa after Bosa suffered a serious knee injury. The posts referred to Bosa as “MAGA Bosa” and said he deserved to suffer the injury because he stood during the national anthem.
Three years later, former ESPN host Keith Olbermann celebrated when Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles in the opening minutes of the Jets’ season.
“Another #SuddenLisfranc due to failure to vaccinate,” Olbermann posted on X.
When the Jets wrote that Rodgers’ injury was “Not the way any of us wanted it to go,” Olbermann responded: “Define ‘any.'”
This type of behavior reflects how many Americans suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) react when something awful happens to a Trump voter or someone who does not express open disdain for the president. They genuinely believe that anyone who does not hate Trump as deeply as they do is unworthy and deserves to be punished.
Sticking to sports commentators, Jemele Hill immediately denounced Charlie Kirk as a racist days after his murder.
Of course, sports injuries are not as serious as death. But they matter. Professional athletes have short careers. Major injuries can derail them, and the consequences are not merely physical. Serious injuries can also take a mental toll.
And yet liberal sports fans and media figures abandon common decency whenever an injury allows them to score cheap political points.
Notice that no such mockery or celebration follows when one of the many athletes who openly promote left-wing politics suffers an injury.
Only one side openly celebrates injuries in sports.
