As Election Day nears, Trump leans on washed-up athletes

Some endorsements are really damning indictments. Donald Trump just received two, in particular, that speak to the hypermasculine toxicity he’s trying to engender in the MAGA movement.

At a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend, Trump touted endorsements from former NFL players Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell, who both played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. This continues his trend of using celebrities with controversial histories to woo voters — particularly Black voters.

Trump also attended the Steelers-Jets game in Pittsburgh on Sunday night, but it’s worth noting that the appearance coincided with Steelers greats Jerome Bettis and “Mean” Joe Greene endorsing the Harris campaign.

Brown and Bell are … of a different caliber.

In 2021, Brown settled a sexual assault lawsuit filed by a former trainer after denying the allegations, which included rape. He has discussed with Bell on camera whether they have CTE, a degenerative brain disease, from playing football and has repeatedly cited the condition as the source of some of his erratic behavior. Since Brown’s retirement, aside from his disturbing social media posts, you might also remember him from a flashing incident in a pool in Dubai.

Endorsing Trump at Saturday’s rally near Pittsburgh, Brown plodded his way through prepared remarks that included an anti-LGBTQ attack and a boast that Tim Walz couldn’t guard him in football. Oh, and he also helped promote Trump’s cryptocurrency venture.

Since his own career ended in 2021, Bell has become a rapper, boxer and OnlyFans creator. Over the weekend, he didn’t exactly offer an admirable display of MAGA masculinity either — see this image he shared of himself donning a shirt referring to Kamala Harris as a “tramp.”

Just weeks from Election Day, Trump and his campaign are going all in on endorsements from washed-up male athletes. On Friday at a rally in Detroit, he brought out former boxer Tommy Hearns, who delivered an at times unintelligible endorsement.

Brown, Bell and Hearns all show how Trump has sought to use contact and combat sports to help fuel a campaign — and a conservative movement — that centers on superficial machismo.