Apparently, the woke mob’s favorite team is any team that’s playing the Packers.
So believes Packers (for now) quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who took his persecution complex to the next level on Tuesday, declaring on the radio show he hijacks weekly his theory regarding the motivations of modern-day football fans.
“There’s a lot of people tuning in rooting against us for one reason and one reason only, and it’s obviously my vaccination status,” Rodgers said, via Ryan Wood of USA Today.
It’s obviously not only his vaccination status, if it’s even that. There are plenty of reasons for teams to be rooting against the Packers on any given Sunday (or Saturday). This week, all 49ers fans and most Bears/Vikings/Lions fans were surely anti-Packers.
Are some otherwise neutral fans no longer ambivalent about the team for which Rodgers plays? Sure, but it’s his own fault. After years of desperately avoiding anything for which he could be criticized, he has made the full wrestling-heel turn, embracing the polarization he’s deliberately causing. Many regard him as a narcissistic. Many regard him as an asshole. Those traits alone are enough to get people to root against him, vaccinated or not.
Rodgers used to crave attention on his own terms, ideally free from criticism. Now, he seems to thrive on the hate, especially if he can characterize it as unwarranted or irrational.
Sure, some people probably don’t like him because he’s unvaccinated. For others, it’s more nuanced. Maybe it’s because he lied about being vaccinated. And then he played a stupid-ass word game about whether he lied about being vaccinated. And then he spread vaccination misinformation, invoking the name of Joe Rogan, currently one of the most polarizing humans in America.
Through it all, Rodgers has pissed and moaned about getting canceled. Through it all, his platform has only grown.
Frankly, in recent months he’s been acting more and more like the 45th president of the United States. Who knows? Maybe Rodgers is contemplating eventually entering that arena. He seems to possess the three most relevant traits — he loves to talk, he loves to hear himself talk, and he loves it when people talk about him.