Chicago and NFL icon Mike Ditka has long been a product pitchman first and everything else second. The 1985 Chicago Bears season was 31 years ago; his shtick on ESPN (and every other outlet giving him a platform) has been a de facto cartoon for a very long time already.
It’s been awhile since Mike Ditka has really been about actual football. These days he’s about any company with a product to push who’s nice to him and will cut him a check.
Ditka is all about the endorsement. That what he does, endorse endorse endorse, endorsing things left and right.
Well, he’ll endorse the Grand Old Party no more. Ditka viciously shredded presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and the Republican party as a whole, and much of what he said is NSFW.
I covered, in great detail, why Ditka turned down a chance to speak at the Republican convention, and why that’s such a major problem for the party at large, for Bold.
Here’s a snippet below:
What CBS Chicago’s Tim Baffoe wrote on the situation then is just as true today, as labeled the Chicago Bears legend thusly:
“Ditka is binary, obtuse and a caricature.” You can find similar neanderthal ethos in Trump’s worldview, both domestically and when it comes to foreign relations.
“The Donald, like Iron Mike, have “toughness” as the core of their individual brand. Their blustery talk is perceived by the masses to be indicative of how truly tough they are, and that toughness supposedly makes them effective leaders who will allegedly keep us safe.
Toughness and machismo is intertwined with Social Darwinism, which itself is intertwined with both football and politics. That’s not a bad thing, because social darwinism is like wasabi- you need some in order to have any flavor, but too much will destroy you.
Many, on both the left and the right, agree (at least to an extent) that political correctness has run amok and society has often become either a.) too easily offended or b.) trying too hard to be offended or c.) both
Comedian and social trail blazer Tina Fey said it best: “There’s a real culture of demanding apologies, and I’m opting out of that.”
Thus we’ve become a society where corporatespeak is replacing English as the official language, the press release is the new gospel, and any individual with anything at all to lose never speaks publicly without being cleared first by a media relations professional on a power trip.
Seemingly, the only way you can express a political opinion while staying “on brand” these days is to Instagram a picture of yourself waving the American flag on Fourth of July with a caption that reads: “Happy Birthday America! U-S-A! U-S-A!”
Expressing any political opinion other than the one just mentioned doesn’t gel with your corporate sponsors. Having to always speak in an utterly humorless manner that sounds like it tests well with focus groups is an awful thing that has rightly inspired backlash. Much of Trump’s popularity stems from his ability to resonate with this backlash. Unfortunately, he consistently does so in a manner that’s ridiculously unprofessional at best, egregiously offensive at worst.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram