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      21 things to look forward to in 2021 – from meteor showers to the Olympics

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      From finally seeing the back of Donald Trump to being in a football stadium – the new year is full of promiseYou probably found a few things to enjoy about last year: you rediscovered your bicycle, perhaps, or your family, or even both, and learned to love trees. And don’t forget the clapping. Plus some brilliant scientists figured out how to make a safe and effective vaccine for a brand new virus in record time. Continue reading… More

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      Frankie Boyle’s big quiz of 2020: ‘How much have you subconsciously tried to suppress?’

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      2020: what a time to still briefly be alive. Let’s look back on the year, after a Christmas so grim for Great Britain that it was almost as if Santa had been reading some history. They said it was political correctness that would end Christmas but now, after the humble office worker was reduced to getting off with their own partner at the Zoom Christmas do, we realise it was actually ended by electing people who try to source medical supplies through their mate’s pest control firm. The Tardis would stop in 2020 barely long enough for Doctor Who to empty its chemical toilet.Every so often, I remember we will be leaving the EU in the middle of a plague and the worst recession in modern history, and then black out and wake up at the bottom of my garden in a pile of canned goods. As Brexit negotiations continued, a 27-acre site in Kent was set to become a lorry park that can take 2,000 lorries. Complaining about your locked gym will soon seem very quaint, when every source of dietary protein is in a parked lorry that can’t be processed because the driver has an apostrophe in his name.One way to not get too down about 2020 is to remind yourself that next year will be worse. But how much of the year can you remember, and how much have you subconsciously tried to suppress? Let’s find out!1. The Labour partyIn many ways, the Labour party should be the natural choice to run a bitterly divided country full of people who hate each other. Keir Starmer, looking like a cross between the bloke who says he’s “unstoppable” before getting fired first on the Apprentice, and an Anglican vicar trying to hold in a fart at a funeral, has been pursuing the approval of newspapers that wouldn’t stop backing the Tories if they crop-dusted the whole country in hot shit. The nationalist posturing required makes him look deeply uncomfortable, as if he’s been asked if he personally would sleep with the Queen and is afraid of both answers. By withdrawing the whip from Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer signalled that he can contain the threat posed by the left of the party, which currently consists of a handful of MPs, maybe 10 journalists, and a couple of dozen shitposters called things like @WetAssProletariat.Where did Keir Starmer choose to deliver his keynote Labour conference speech?a) His own kitchen.b) Labour party HQ in Westminster.c) A socially distanced PPE factory in the East End of London.d) A corridor in a deserted Doncaster arts centre.2. Test and traceThe government spent £12bn on it, and yet still the only reliable app for alerting you to the fact that someone deadly is nearby is the one that shows you when your Uber driver has arrived. Of course Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed complaints from people who had to travel 200 miles for a test: he regularly commutes between now and the 1840s, strapped into something built from plans drawn up to the final words of the tortured HG Wells, with a groundsman furiously shovelling venison into a flux capacitor.Which of these organisations was not given contracts to help implement the NHS test-and-trace system?a) Serco.b) Capita.c) The NHS.d) Sitel.3. Boris JohnsonIt’s difficult to speculate on the long-term effects that the pandemic will have on British politics; all we know for certain is that 40% of the survivors will vote Conservative. One flaw in Labour’s relentless framing of prime ministerial incompetence is that the Conservatives can just replace him with someone more competent – possibly Rishi Sunak, and his air of a sixth former who still wears their school uniform. Boris Johnson may be a marshmallow toasting on the funeral pyre of Britain, a post-apocalyptic snowman with the increasingly dishevelled air of something that’s been tied to the front grille of a bin lorry, a demented, sex-case vacuum cleaner bag; but there’s no denying he does possess some Churchillian qualities: racism and obesity.Which of these did Boris Johnson fail to do in his first 365 days as prime minister?a) Get divorced.b) Have a baby.c) Contract coronavirus.d) Secure a trade agreement with the EU.4. Laurence FoxTaking time out from tweeting denials of his privilege while wearing three-piece pyjamas, Laurence (19th-century) Fox announced the launch of his new political party. He certainly looked determined. Or was it sad? I just never quite know which one he’s doing.No doubt he considers himself to be on the Reich side of history, but he may yet regret his statements on Black Lives Matter: the way his acting career’s going, there could well be auditions where he’ll have to take a knee. Fox’s head points to a combination of robust genes and forceps pressure, showing that from the very start he had a reluctance to face the real world. The sort of people who went to his famous boarding school would never be so gauche as to actually mention the name Harrow, except when phoning up for a Chinese takeaway, pissed.In 2020, Fox received large donations for his laughable new culture-war party, and it must have been odd to receive millions of pounds that wasn’t a divorce settlement from the mother of his children. We can only hope that his interest in politics wanes soon, and he can get back on stage and give us his long overdue Othello.Which of these is not something Laurence Fox did this year?a) Announced a personal boycott of Sainsbury’s.b) Got dropped by his acting agent over the phone.c) Acted in a film.d) Got told to fuck off by the Pogues.5. Social mediaIn 2020, the only thing you could say for sure when you met an optimist was that they weren’t on Facebook. Hate-sharing app Twitter has again spent the year setting itself up as an arbiter of morals, a role it’s as convincing in as the Love Island casting department. Personally, I left Twitter because of death threats: Eamonn Holmes just didn’t seem to be reading them any more.Which of these Twitter users has the most followers, and which the least? One point for each correctly placed. a) Donald Trump.b) Katy Perry.c) Logan Paul.d) BTS.6. Trump v BidenThe broad takeaway from the US election is that Americans count as slowly as one would expect. Joe Biden is not exactly overflowing with presence. You see his picture and the first thing you think is, “Was that already in there when I bought the frame?” Even at his most strident, he barely has the presence of a finger-wagging, spectral grandparent that appears as you hover, undecided, over a perineum. He could become the first president assassinated by an icy patch outside the post office.Still, Biden performed surprisingly well during the campaign, especially when you consider that he had to put up with the distraction of his mother’s voice calling his name gently from a bright light. He’s now so close to death that he can talk directly to the Ancestors, and has been ending every press conference by asking people if they have any questions for David Bowie.How old would Joe Biden be by the end of a second term in office?a) 86.b) 84.c) 88.d) 90.7. AsylumPeter Sutcliffe died and Priti Patel didn’t move on the list of Britain’s 10 Worst People, whereas I went up one. Patel has stood out as uniquely dreadful even in a cabinet that is basically Carry On Lord Of The Flies, dresses as if she’s going to the funeral of someone she hates, and often speaks as if trapped in a loveless marriage with her interviewer.Which of the following proposals did Priti Patel’s Home Office not consider as a way of deterring people from seeking asylum in Britain?a) Building a giant wave machine in the English channel.b) Processing asylum seekers on a volcanic outcrop in the South Atlantic, a thousand miles from the nearest landmass.c) Training swordfish to burst dinghies.d) Housing asylum applicants on decommissioned oil rigs in the North Sea.8. Grant ShappsGrant Shapps looks like a Blackpool waxwork of Clive Anderson, and has the permanent expression in every TV appearance of a man watching his train pull away behind the camera.But what is his actual job title?a) Secretary of state for transport.b) Minister for Brexit.c) Minister of state for international development.d) Chief whip.9. Conspiracy theoristsThe pandemic has been hard on many conspiracy theorists: eight months of men keeping their distance, too. There are people who believe Covid-19 is spread by 5G. If only that were true: put Virgin Media in charge and we’d be clear of it in days.An anti-mask demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 29 August drew thousands of protesters: which of these countercultural celebrities did not speak?a) Piers Corbyn.b) David Icke.c) Chico Slimani from The X Factor.d) Bill Drummond from the KLF.10. Jeff BezosOur disposable culture isn’t all bad. Without it, I’d miss that warm glow on Boxing Day when my son stuffs my gift in the bin and I imagine, in just a couple of years’ time, the joy on the face of the kid who pulls it from a pile of dirty syringes in a Philippines landfill. Jeff Bezos has become the world’s wealthiest man by pioneering a kind of delivery Argos. I look at Bezos and wonder if the rest of us evolved too much: his acquisitiveness is possibly explained by the fact he looks like a newborn constantly searching for a nipple.What was the most money Bezos made in a single day of the pandemic? a) $100m.b) Nothing. He has said all his profits will go towards developing Covid therapies.c) $150m.d) $13bn.11. PrisonGhislaine Maxwell was arrested. For those of you too young to remember, Ghislaine is the daughter of a media mogul whose death sent ripples around the world – because he was obese and fell in the ocean. Steve Bannon was also arrested and charged with fraud. On the wing, prisoners described his potential arrival as “whatever’s the opposite to fresh meat”.But which of the following are not currently in jail?a) Harvey Weinstein.b) Bill Cosby.c) Ricardo Medina Jr, the red Power Ranger.d) The cops who killed Breonna Taylor.12. Donald TrumpThis year’s presidential debates were like looking through the window of a care home on the day the staff thought they’d play prescription roulette. By managing only to speak to his base and alienating everyone else, Trump ended up being the definitive Twitter president. There’s so much wrong with him you could talk about his presidency for ever and never run out of things to criticise. It’s the equivalent of letting a child repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and then pointing out all the bits that aren’t as good as Michelangelo’s. “Is that meant to be God, Timmy? Why is he eating a Babybel?”In hospital, Trump was given a new drug made by Regeneron, which sounds like the robot who’ll present Match Of The Day once Gary Lineker’s been strapped into the re-education dinghy. He seemed to pull through, but it’s hard to gauge the health of someone who looks like Frankenstein’s monster won a holiday, and who chooses to have the skin colour of a dialysis machine emptied on to snow.Which of these is not something Trump achieved this year?a) The most votes for an incumbent candidate.b) The most retweeted tweet of all time.c) The highest US death toll in a century.d) The most golf ever played by a sitting President.13. The EurosScotland qualified for next year’s Euros after beating Serbia. Facing a team that grew up in a war zone in the 1990s, Serbia lost on penalties.When did Scotland last qualify for a major tournament? a) Argentina 1978.b) Italia 1990.c) France 1998.d) Mexico 1986.14. DystopiaIf only late-stage capitalism could get behind equality and lead us to a golden age where people of all skin colours are considered equally dispensable. For the time being, we needn’t fear AI. The robot that steals your job is expensive. You are cheap. You can only die, whereas it may get scratched.I wonder if our leaders’ go-to platitude, “We’re all in this together”, will ever ring true? Perhaps after the next wave of austerity, as it blares through speakers in the bunk-bedded dormitory of a derelict Sports Direct, rousing us at dawn so that we can harvest kelp in the shallows in exchange for the fibre waste collected from the juicers of gated communities, wearing nothing but underpants: ones we never seem to fully own, underpants where there always seems to be one more payment due to the Corporation.We will dream of one day having our own igloo built from blocks cut from sewer-fat, maybe even moving to a better neighbourhood, just as soon as it’s hot enough to slide our house there. As we heave our bales on to the gangmaster’s counter, the ex-performers among us will kid ourselves it’s still showbiz, as we’re permitted to crack a joke, and if the gangmaster smiles he’ll throw us a treat. We opt for a classic: surely no one has ever not laughed at one where bagpipes are confused with an octopus wearing pyjamas? But just as we can almost taste sugar, a mangled tentacle drops from our kelp block into our open mouth and ruins the moment.Which one of these was not a scientific breakthrough in 2020?a) The discovery that bacteria can survive in space for several years.b) A bionic breakthrough that allows people with paralysis to control computers using their thoughts.c) The confirmation that there are several large saltwater lakes under the ice in the south polar region of the planet Mars.d) An AI which can alter magnetic fields in the human brain, influencing thoughts.Answers1. d. 2. c. 3. d. 4. c.5. Most to least: Perry, Trump, BTS, Paul. 6. a. 7. c. 8. a.9. d.10. d. 11. d. 12. b. 13. c. 14. d. More

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      Kamala Harris didn't become vice-president-elect by saying 'no worries if not' | Emma Brockes

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      Every few months on social media, a campaign reliably comes around urging women to stop undermining ourselves at work. Don’t, we’re advised, use the qualifier “just”, as in “can I just float an idea?” Stop apologising for making routine demands or having the temerity to use up someone’s time. Most recently and trenchantly, don’t, we are advised, ground every timorous request with the phrase “no worries if not”.
      I say and do all of these things, although less frequently than I once did. Where 10 years ago the qualifiers came out as reflex, these days, I generally catch and delete them before I hit send. I don’t open emails with “sorry to bother you”, unless I’m being deliberately passive aggressive. (This is my preferred tonal mode, obviously, although it gets me nowhere in the US. A snippy email I sent to an American last week hinged on the word “unideal”, a neutral term to American ears, but to a Brit, clearly, signifying a curse on you and your family for a thousand years.)
      These exhortations to pull ourselves together and stop vacillating have been a useful alert to behaviours many women engage in at the level of instinct. These behaviours are also strategic, a necessary hedge to what we know is the offputting effect of women making demands. The “no worries if not” habit is a particularly hard one to break, based as it is on a justifiable anxiety that the only way to get what you want is to present it as an act of largesse on the part of the person you are asking.
      All of which has been on my mind this week while watching the ascent of Kamala Harris to vice-president-elect. Although the relief and ecstasy at the election results were huge, when she made her victory speech on Saturday night, I didn’t expect to be moved. Harris wasn’t accepting the top job, after all: she was the warm-up act for Joe Biden and celebrating her “first” when the position was still second-in-command seemed to me a bit dismal. And yet, when she gave a shout-out to all the young girls watching, including my five-year-old daughters, urging them to see themselves in ways others might not traditionally have seen them, to my amazement I had to swallow hard and look away.
      Harris had, over the weeks and months of the campaign, been subject to a lot of the criticisms that dogged Hillary Clinton. She was too abrasive, too cocky, too full of herself. During the primaries, while Bernie Sanders and Biden shouted and chopped the air with their hands, Harris remained, by necessity, even-tempered and moderately spoken. A man who loses his temper is forceful; a woman who does so is unhinged.

      The soft-approach of “no worries if not” isn’t a self-defeating verbal tic, therefore, but has for a long time been the quickest and easiest way for women to deliver a frictionless result, and it is one it would be good to retire. I recently wrote a book with Megan Rapinoe, whose directness – with Donald Trump, with Sports Illustrated, with the governing body of her own sport – has been interpreted by some as monstrous impoliteness, about which Rapinoe doesn’t have a shred of self-doubt.
      Why, she says, shouldn’t she and her teammates demand more money, when they win all the time and are, compared with male footballers in the US, chronically underpaid? Why shouldn’t she, while accepting an award from Sports Illustrated, flag up how few women and writers of colour they employ? And why shouldn’t she say, after winning, “I deserve this”?
      All of which I understand intellectually, but still find basically socially mortifying. In the writing of this book, we had to go over it, again and again, and each time it struck me as freshly outlandish. How did she not die of embarrassment? Wasn’t she worried these kinds of statements made her appear “ungrateful”? Where did she get the gumption to presume she might take up that much space? “I think about the people I’m speaking for, not those I’m speaking to,” she said, which is a useful reframing. And in a phrase that could serve, admirably, as the title for a book of whimsical essays on female confidence, “I don’t need you to like me to know that I’m right.”
      Neither the confidence thing, nor the perception of women asking for things as rude, will be solved quickly, and to that extent “no worries if not” remains a useful approach. But with a woman in the second highest office in the land, it would be nice if a shift got under way: from help me out here, I’m grateful for any bone you might throw me, to help me out here because it’s your job.
      • Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist based in New York. She is the author of One Life, by Megan Rapinoe More

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      Donald Trump wanted a fight with athletes. They may well have doomed him

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      Sports and politics have always existed at a very public intersection in American life, but never was the illusory firewall keeping them apart more nakedly exposed than over the past four years. Donald Trump’s political alchemy has always relied on his uncanny skill at leveraging the fault lines that divide us. It’s proven an essential tactic for someone who managed to capture the Republican presidential nomination despite failing to win a majority in the first 40 primaries and caucuses, who won the White House despite losing the popular vote by nearly three million ballots and whose overall approval ratings have never cracked a majority throughout his term.
      From the earliest days of his administration Trump has found fertile ground in taking this fight to America’s last unifying arena: co-opting US sports as not merely a proxy battle in the culture wars that reflect a country’s deep divides, but the primary theatre. He’s always recognized sports as an inextricable stripe of the American experience: from owning a team in the upstart United States Football League in the early 1980s to hosting a series of major prizefights at his casino in Atlantic City before it went bankrupt, most notably the 1988 blockbuster between Mike Tyson and Michael Spinks, for which he paid a then-record $11m site fee. It’s these roots in boxing promotion, where misdirection and the manifold arts of emotional manipulation are the stock-in-trade, that served him particularly well during his stunning ascent to the White House. But it wasn’t until a rally in Alabama nine months into his presidency that he first seized on what became his favorite fountainhead of easy political points.
      His sensational broadside on Colin Kaepernick was only the start. Before long Trump was jousting with NBA stars Stephen Curry and LeBron James over his decision to rescind the Golden State Warriors’ unaccepted invitation for the White House visit traditionally extended to championship-winning teams (eliciting the all-time burn from LeBron of “U bum”). He picked a fight with Megan Rapinoe, a proudly gay athlete with a taste for battle whose outspoken political views have made her a lightning rod for conservatives. He launched a baseless attack on Bubba Wallace over an incident this summer in which a noose was found in the team garage of Nascar’s only black driver. When then-ESPN correspondent Jemele Hill tweeted that Trump was “a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists”, Trump clapped back first through the White House press secretary, who declared the comments “a fireable offense”, then doubled down with a name-check on Twitter pegged to Hill’s two-week suspension from the network.
      For the first few years it was a cost-free enterprise. The targeted demonization of these so-called elites, almost exclusively from minority or otherwise marginalized communities, was red meat for his base: a white guy talking tough in a country where white guys talking tough is still for many seen as something to be impressed by. It played to our worst instincts and our lowest common denominator. Depressingly, it was good politics.
      But a funny thing happened on the way to a re-election that for years felt like a fait accompli given the historical power of the incumbency. With the sports world at a standstill due to the coronavirus pandemic and amid nationwide unrest over the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, the calculus changed. A strategy dependent on the highly instinctive command of thin margins began to tilt against its conductor. The accumulation of the president’s incessant counter-punching led to organization among professional athletes that not only drew attention to social and racial injustice – remember: Kaepernick only wanted to start a conversation – but brought about a high-water point of athlete activism not seen since the 1960s, when champions such as Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul‑Jabbar risked their livelihoods to stand on the frontline of the civil rights movement.
      In June, Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner who three years ago gifted Trump a decisive optical victory when he unveiled a policy requiring every player, coach, trainer, ballboy, referee and executive to stand for the national anthem or face punishment, admitted the decision was wrong in a stunning about-face that was seen as a snub of the US president. Goodell’s mea culpa directly followed a video challenge to the league from some of the NFL’s biggest stars – including Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson and Odell Beckham – who spoke powerfully about the omnipresence of systemic racism against black Americans. More

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      Lady Gaga attacks Trump's 'grab' remarks at Joe Biden rally

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      Lady Gaga gave an impassioned message of support for Joe Biden as America heads to the polls, making reference to Donald Trump’s history of crude sexual remarks and alleged sexual assaults.“Vote like your life depends on it, or vote like your children’s lives depends on it, because they do,” she told a rally in Pennsylvania. “Everybody, no matter how you identify, now is your chance to vote against Donald Trump, a man who believes his fame gives him the right to grab one of your daughters, or sisters, or mothers or wives by any part of their bodies … Vote for Joe. He’s a good person.”Her words referred to Trump’s infamous 2005 boast that “when you’re a star, they let you do it … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything”.Trump referred to Gaga at his own Pennsylvania rally, saying she “is not too good … I could tell you stories about Lady Gaga. I know a lot of stories.”On Sunday, Trump’s communications director Tim Murtagh tweeted: “Nothing exposes Biden’s disdain for the forgotten working men & women of PA like campaigning with anti-fracking activist Lady Gaga. This desperate effort to drum up enthusiasm is actually a sharp stick in the eye for 600,000 Pennsylvanians who work in the fracking industry.” Gaga responded: “I’m glad to be living rent free in your head.”At his Pennsylvania rally, Trump also criticised Jon Boni Jovi, Jay-Z, and LeBron James, who won the 2020 NBA championship with the LA Lakers in October. “I didn’t watch one shot, I got bored, back forth, back forth,” Trump said. “You know why? When they don’t respect our country, when they don’t respect our flag, nobody wants to watch”, a reference to the kneeling protests James and his team made on their return in July.James later endorsed Biden on Instagram, saying: “We need everything to change and it all starts tomorrow.” More

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      Athletes and the US election: How a generation of stars got in the game

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      They put in the long hours, did all the heavy lifting, prepared like never before – and all in anticipation for the biggest contest of the year: The one on 3 November.
      That day, election day, is now less than a week away. Already, votes have been cast by a record 66 million-plus Americans, an astonishing draw that once seemed unfathomable during a pandemic. And while much of that sense of urgency stems from the 2020 presidential race – truly a life or death vote, in light of the ravages of Covid – the sense of purpose was shaped in no small part by the activism in sports. “Because of everything that’s going on, people are finally starting to listen to us,” LeBron James told the New York Times in June. “We feel like we’re finally getting a foot in the door.”
      The big push started in March, with people the world over breaking quarantine to protest systemic anti-black racism in the wake of George Floyd’s unlawful killing in May at the hands of Minneapolis police. Meanwhile, scores of idle dribblers wondered if an on-court comeback might steal focus. In the end they did return but with assurances that social justice would become more centered in the overall spectacle. Hence how Black Lives Matter landed on NBA and WNBA courts and jerseys, and voter registration became the focus of recurring league PSAs. And when protests erupted again after Kenosha police shot Jacob Blake within an inch of his life three months later and the Milwaukee Bucks walked off of a play-off game and triggered a two-day sports blackout, one of the biggest concessions they won from their NBA partners was a pledge to convert some 20-odd league arenas into polling places in response to Donald Trump’s attempts to suppress and undermine in-person and mail-in balloting.
      Last Saturday, on the first ever day of early voting in New York state, thousands of masked Manhattanites wrapped the streets and avenues around Madison Square Garden, with some waiting as long as five hours to cast their ballots. The scene was similar, if a bit more brisk, at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento and at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte. That a team owned by someone as famously apolitical as Michael Jordan could have a hand in this historic election turnout is a welcome twist.
      The kicker: he’s also written $2.5m-worth of checks to fight black voter suppression as part of a 10-year, $100m pledge to beat systemic racism – the clearest indicator yet of his evolution away from the neutral pitchman who hawked so many sneakers and colors of Gatorade in the ‘90s. “We understand that one of the main ways we can change systemic racism is at the polls,” he said in a July statement. “We know it will take time for us to create the change we want to see, but we are working quickly to take action for the Black Community’s voice to be heard.”
      Still, you wonder if Jordan would’ve ever had such courage in his newfound convictions if James wasn’t giving as good as he gets from his critic-in-chief in the Oval Office in between weighing in on social justice issues in real time. As he was leading the Lakers to an NBA championship, he was huddling with a group of prominent athletes and entertainers to launch More Than a Vote, an organization aimed at informing, protecting and turning out Black voters.
      When it comes to more acute impact, however, James and co have nothing on his female counterparts. When one of its owners, Kelly Loeffler, the junior Republican US senator from Georgia who owns half of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, took to the airwaves this past summer to disparage Black Lives Matter and the league for dedicating its season to the movement, players from her team and the opposing Phoenix Mercury took to the court before a nationally televised game in black T-shirts endorsing her Democratic opponent Raphael Warnock, leader of the Atlanta Baptist church where Martin Luther King once pastored.
      The shirts quickly came into vogue league-wide. Within two days, Warnock’s campaign announced a $183,000 fundraising windfall – which helped launch a TV ad onslaught. In the last month Warnock has gone from polling slightly ahead of Loeffler at 31% to above 50% – which is right where he would have to be to avoid a January runoff. “It was one of many turning points in the campaign,” Warnock told USA Today Sports of the WNBA players’ endorsement. Nneka Ogwumike, the Los Angeles Sparks MVP forward and Player Association president, called it something else: “My favorite moment of the summer.”
      That a group of athletes could be as persuasive in the political arena as they are commercially shouldn’t come as a surprise. Researchers at Wake Forest University launched a study into this very phenomenon this year and have already found the impact on political views of local and national matters to be significant, citing Colin Kaepernick’s hard-fought success in moving the needle on police reform as one example. “They’re influencing people to watch them,” said Betina Wilkinson, an associate professor of political science on the study. “They’re influencing people to buy the products that they’re selling, but then also now they have the ability to influence people’s views on issues regarding race such as immigration and criminal justice reform.” Meanwhile, the majority of respondents to a recent Politico study said Kaepernick’s activism inspired them to vote in a local, state or national election – and that’s with Kaepernick saying he didn’t vote in the 2016 election.
      Gone are the days when an athlete’s impact on the democratic process was mostly incidental. You remember those “studies”: the gubernatorial race that was actually decided by a college football upset. The presidential election that was foretold by the “Redskin Rule”. Or the Super Bowl result. Or the Bears-Colts game.
      These days, you’d be hard-pressed to turn on an NFL game without the Texans’ Deshaun Watson, Saints’ Cam Jordan and Seahawks coach Pete Carroll belittling the fact that only 60% of Americans voted in the 2016 presidential election as they encourage you to register to vote. For a league that oozes conservatism and genuflected to the president, whose demented causes aren’t helped by high voter turnout, this may as well be the equivalent of dumping tea into Boston Harbor. Even college football plays against type. Just last month, the NCAA’s Division I Council called for a blackout on practices and games on election day. All the while, athletic departments from Cal State LA to Yale have held registration drives with the goal of signing up all of their eligible athletes.
      Clearly, we are now well past the era of athletes voting their bank accounts. Turns out, the money only goes so far. It didn’t spare them the inconvenience of being black or gay in America or otherwise labeled as different. So it figures that when their backs were against the wall, they banded closer together and found a collective resolve. That their impact can already be felt this far away from election day goes to show the hold athletes had on us all along. What’s more, that handle can only get tighter with more practice and progress in the years ahead. More