A week after Pat McAfee failed spectacularly in his quest to “CHECK!” noted anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Aaron Rodgers, announced that “Aaron Rodgers Tuesdays” were done for the year, and then had Rodgers back on the show the very next day, I have begun to ask myself if what McAfee is doing is some kind of grandiose experiment, to see how far society will let him go before turning on him. Or maybe how much ESPN will endure before taking his show off the air? Or perhaps to see how far the public discourse in America has fallen?” It’s either that, or what goes on inside McAfee’s head is similar to what Homer Simpson is thinking about at any given time.
If you missed McAfee’s ode to Dr. Martin Luther King on MLK Day, let me recap it for you. Honestly, having McAfee on during MLK day was probably ESPN’s first mistake — that was never going to be programming that made America proud. But McAfee surprised even me with his take on racial equality. I’ll let you read it for yourself:
“Obviously, it’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He had a dream. And I think LANK was one of the closest we’ve had to potentially that dream coming to fruition. So let’s realize that as we look around and that we’re maybe more close than we’ve ever been.”
First off, the LANK incident refers to a moment on College Gameday when McAfee thought one of his colleagues was about to say the n-word on national television, so that’s a bizarre thing to bring up on MLK Day. Also, it makes zero sense in the context that he’s using it, but, hey, this is the Pat McAfee Show — everything is a huge joke crafted to appeal to an audience of 12-year olds.
But McAfee wasn’t done:
“And there’s an election about to take place [this] year where we need to remember that we are more close than we have ever been. And people could potentially try to drive us apart from the outside looking in. Now, as somebody who was canceled by both parties last week, both of them canceled me. Two political parties canceled me last week and we are still alive. Let’s remember we don’t need all the outside noise. All we need is a little bit of love. Which is what we have for all the people who have good intentions every single day when they wake up, just like us. Now, with that being said, football is awesome.”
I’m not sure where to even begin with this world salad, but I’ll point out that 1) “more close” is not a phrase — it’s “closer,” and 2) being criticized for letting a conspiracy theorist run wild on your show, without ever calling him out on any of his galaxy-brained BS, does not equate to being “canceled,” especially when you are getting $17 million a year from the largest media company in the world to put on a daily show in which you say whatever the hell you want, no matter how stupid or provably false. That is the polar opposite of being canceled.
I’m going to assume that, if you’re reading this, I don’t have to explain to you why McAfee comparing the blowback he gets to his show to an assassinated civil rights leader is distasteful, at best and, at worst, downright revolting. It might even be racist, if I could figure out what McAfee was trying to say. But alas.
The idea of being “canceled” has become a joke — most often invoked by people (white men, usually) who can’t stand the idea of being critiqued on what comes out of their mouth and who believe that any vocal disapproval of their behavior means the world is being unfair to them. In a time when media was less-unhinged (more hinged?) and was actually run by journalists who cared about things like facts and truth, McAfee would have lost Aaron Rodgers Tuesdays eons ago, and might be off the air altogether. But media these days, and especially sports media, is all about catering to the lowest, loudest, common denominator. Enter Pat McAfee – a guy who only wears sleeves on TV as an act of contrition.
It’s not surprising that McAfee perceives the country as being “more close” than we’ve ever been, despite numerous reports finding that America is as divided as it’s ever been. The Pew Research Center found that “America is exceptional in the nature of its political divide.” Something like 50 percent of Americans have no problem voting for a man facing 91 criminal charges in multiple jurisdictions, who admitted to sexually assaulting women and who was found by a jury of having done just that. A poll just this week found that 50 percent of Americans agree with Donald Trump that immigrants “poison the blood” of the nation, which sounds awfully Nazi-adjacent to me. “More close” than ever? Please. It’s not just that McAfee is ignorant and seems to know nothing about the world outside of the sports page, it’s that he’s completely, demonstrably, objectively wrong all the time. And ESPN allows him to continue on as if what he’s saying is the truth. Too often, it’s the exact opposite of what’s true.
But because McAfee got blowback from both sides, America is coming together!
“Wow, you seem to take McAfee’s show really personally,” one reply guy recently told me on one of my social media platforms. He’s right, I do. As someone who spent five years working in sports talk radio, I have seen so many intelligent people forced out of the industry by management that is still chasing the white, male 18-54 demographic, despite the fact that the audience for sports is so much bigger than that. I know so many hosts that would absolutely soar — elevate the discourse around sports and their impact on our society — if given the opportunity. But too many of those people are working “regular” jobs during the week just to have a couple hours of air-time on the weekends. And yet McAfee is complaining about being “canceled.” The truth is that people of color and women are too often bounced from their gigs for being even the slightest bit “controversial” — just ask Jemele Hill — even if what they are saying is absolutely true. It’s not that McAfee was canceled and survived, it’s that his whiteness, maleness and appeal to a certain type of man protected him from any actual repercussions for peddling misinformation.
And, yeah, I do take it personally that ESPN thinks I would rather watch McAfee than Outside the Lines, thinks that I prefer a bunch of dudes sitting around a studio weighing in on social issues to watching to Bob Ley or Kate Fagan. That someone at ESPN thinks that the Pat McAfee Show is the future — is worthy — of our time. I take that very personally. And so should you.
