Aaron Rodgers, Vice President of WTF?
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One of my best friends is not in the business of caring about sports all that much because she is a healthy, well-adjusted person. But she dives in when things start crossing over into actual news. Yesterday evening, she sent me a screenshot of a New York Times article saying that Aaron Rodgers is potentially going to be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate (for president, not for wind sprints at practice with the New York Jets, the team for which Aaron Rodgers is still very much the quarterback). She requested my “hottest take.”
My hottest take is that Aaron Rodgers is an agent of chaos who has built a personal brand based on not what he claims to believe in, but on what he claims not to. The take isn’t even that hot, honestly. Aaron Rodgers thrives in spaces where facts are absent and no one is willing to check him. Here is what I wrote when Rodgers announced he’d be playing for the Jets last year:
I’ve said for a long time now that Rodgers is an agent of chaos. I don’t think that he has beliefs so much as he has counter-beliefs. He has an illuminati tattoo on his arm and Ayn Rand books in the background of his Zooms. He “misled” the public about being vaccinated and then admitted he did so…on Joe Rogan’s podcast. He believes in the power of crystals and in darkness retreats, but not in science. He questioned the outcome of the 2020 election, but later said Donald Trump is a loser? He “leans pro-life,” but believes abortion should always be legal.
There isn’t much of a solid through-line besides simply being contrary. Rodgers’ stances change year-to-year. He strikes me as a guy who throws wrenches in gears and gasoline on fires just because he can.
I wrote this before Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon after taking just four snaps in the first game of the 2023 NFL season. I wrote this before the Jets completely fell apart and Rodgers rode around the practice facility on a scooter with a license plate on it that said WATCH ME. I wrote this before Rodgers insinuated that Jimmy Kimmel had ties to Jeffrey Epstein on Pat McAfee’s ESPN show. I wrote this before Rodgers made fun of Travis Kelce for working with Pfizer. I wrote this before Rodgers kept spewing anti-vaccine nonsense on McAfee’s show and said transphobic things with Joe Rogan.
Rodgers and RFK Jr. would be good running mates, considering that they’re both into conspiracy theories. Here is a list of all the conspiracies that Kennedy has promoted, which include, but are not limited to: saying Covid infections are linked to race, claiming mass shootings have to do with to the rise of Prozac, and arguing that vaccines can cause autism. None of those things are true.
Rodgers and Kennedy went hiking in February, according to this picture that RFK posted. Kennedy wrote, “Hiking with AarronRodgers12 and his amazing Achilles ⛰️” Ummmm, sure. You expect us to believe that this wasn’t Photoshopped to prove that Rodgers has healed enough to hike? If this whole Kate Middleton saga has taught us anything, it’s that we can’t trust pictures tweeted out by political royalty. How’s that for a conspiracy theory?
Just kidding, I don’t actually think this was edited. But in the off-chance these guys subscribe to my substack (lol!) I had to give them a taste of their own medicine. And I can only imagine the things they talked about as they climbed whatever hill this is. I won’t be surprised if one of them soon publicly claims that mountains were formed when God farted.
According to the NYT, someone registered the domain name kennedyrodgers.com last week. And look, aside from how absurd this is and what a monumentally bad decision it would be to vote for these guys, I do have some questions about the logistics here.
How would this even work? Can you play in the NFL and campaign for the vice presidency? God forbid these guys actually get elected (they won’t, but let’s play this out), what if the Jets make a deep playoff run that conflicts with the inauguration?* Don’t you have to put all your money in a blind trust when you become vice president? Could Rodgers still play football but not get paid? Would the secret service just hang around the Jets practice facility? Would Rodgers request a trade to the Washington Commanders to be closer to his other job? What happens if the Vice President gets concussed?
*Aaron Rodgers being VP is more believable than the Jets making a deep playoff run, let’s be honest.
I don’t know, folks. I wish all of this could simply be funny, but given where we are as a country, it feels pretty bleak. It would be so nice if Aaron Rodgers had just stuck to sports. I preferred it when he wore a bolo tie for no reason and spoke in a southern accent during a post-game interview in 2019 (that was the first time I was like uhh…something is up with this dude). I’m sick of things that should be objectively funny being actually dangerous. I guess “sick of” is an understatement there. America’s previous president proved that there isn’t really a rock bottom when it comes to whom people will vote for, so it’s impossible to laugh off something like Kennedy/Rodgers 2024.
But I do know one thing: the image of Aaron Rodgers running out of the tunnel as a Jet for the first time — while holding an American flag — right before he tore his achilles tendon will be the header image on kennedyrodgers.com. If it isn’t, everyone involved in this is even worse at it than I thought.
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