First he urged women to put family first. Now Harrison Butker’s the latest angry rich guy with a Pac | Arwa Mahdawi

In a segment last weekLaura Ingraham could barely contain her joy when she announced that Harrison Butker had decided to venture into politics: a “move that would surely drive the Liberals crazy.”

Butker, for those who don’t know, is a kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs – who are famous in non-athletic circles for being the team that Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, plays for. Butker is not only the highest-paid kicker in the NFL and the owner of a very impressive beard, but is also what a polite person might call “traditional” and a more direct person might call “Taliban-adjacent.” He actually thinks women should stay home to make sandwiches for their husbands and take care of their children. In May, the athlete caused a stir when he gave a speech at Benedictine College, a Catholic private liberal arts school, espousing these views. In the same speech, Butker also denounced “dangerous gender ideologies,” called Pride month a “deadly sin” and rattled off several other conservative talking points.

Butker’s Benedictine speech caused a huge backlash, but also, predictably, made him a hero on the right. He was no longer just a man paid millions of dollars to play ball, he was a fighter who bravely opened a new front in the never-ending culture war. Sales of his sweater soared.

Now it appears Butker plans to take his newfound fame all the way to the White House. Don’t worry, he hasn’t announced a run for president yet — although you’d imagine the thought has crossed his mind — but he has decided to dip his toes into the murky world of political financing.

Last weekend, the kicker formed a political action committee Upright Pac, intended to get more Christians to vote. “Every day we see our values ​​under attack. In our schools, in the media and even from our own government,” the website explains. “But we have a chance to fight back and reclaim the traditional values ​​that made this country great. That is why UPRIGHT PAC was founded.”

Butker announced the Pac shortly afterwards officially approved far-right Missouri Senator Josh Hawley for re-election. Hawley is the man who raised a fist in solidarity against protesters on January 6 and was then filmed fleeing those protesters as they forcibly entered the Capitol building. He can’t stop either talk about the “collapse of American masculinity” and the supposed crisis of men retreating “into the enclave of idleness, pornography, and video games.”

Although Upright Pac’s website does not explicitly mention Donald Trump, Butker told Ingraham on Thursday that he would support the former president because of his stance on abortion. “I think Donald Trump is the most pro-life president,” Butker said. That could make things awkward on Kansas City Chiefs socials since Swift endorsed Kamala Harris.

With just a few weeks to go until the election, Butker’s new Pac won’t make much of a difference when it comes to Trump’s election. But who knows what it could bring in the future. His decision to mobilize Christian voters through a Pac speaks to a broader issue: the outsized influence of special interest groups and influential individuals in shaping American politics.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling loosened restrictions on campaign finance laws and allowed corporations and special interest groups to spend unlimited money on elections as long as there was no direct coordination with political candidates or parties. This paved the way for the financing of Super Pac: actually fancy legal frameworks that make it possible for large (and often dark) money to be channeled into campaigns. Jimmy Carter has called it legalized “bribery.”

Pacs have played an important role in this election cycle. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has spent more than $100 million on federal elections so far this cycle and may have played a major role in dethroning Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush – two of the members of Congress. most outspoken critics of Israel’s behavior in Gaza. It also appears to have helped maintain support for the war: a Guardian analysis published in January found that those members of Congress who most supported Israel’s campaign in Gaza during the first six weeks of the war , were politicians who had benefited from donations from pro-Israel groups such as Aipac.

And Aipac is far from the only group to topple politicians. It’s possible that Fairshake Pac, a Super Pac backed by the cryptocurrency industry, played a role in preventing Katie Porter from advancing in her bid for U.S. Senate in California earlier this year. Fairshake, backed by leaders in the cryptocurrency industry, millions spent in the primaries over ads urging cryptocurrency enthusiasts to vote against Porter. Elon Musk has donated about $75 million to his pro-Trump America Pac in the past three months.

In short: Butker is in busy company. Anyone with a chip on their shoulder and some money in their pocket has a Pac these days. If you want to buy friends and influence elections, they are a must-have.

And while it’s still early for Butker’s Pac, he certainly seems to have a lot of support. The owner of the Kansas City Chiefs said Wednesday he has no problem with his player’s forays into politics. That’s interesting because athletes, when they lean left, are often criticized for getting political. The same Laura Ingraham who is so excited about Butker’s move into politics memorably told basketball star LeBron James in 2018 to keep his political comments to himself and “shut up and dribble.” Ingraham had taken offense to James discussing the challenges. of being black and a public figure in the US during an ESPN interview. ‘It is always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid a hundred million dollars a year to bounce a ball’ she snorted.

Butker, meanwhile, gets paid $6.4 million a year to play with a football. And I didn’t hear anyone on the right telling him to be quiet and kick.