Garth Brooks is a country music singer who has sold more albums than almost all other American recording artists. Barry Sanders is universally regarded as one of the greatest running backs in the history of professional football, playing 10 seasons with the Detroit Lions starting in 1989. Both Brooks and Sanders are what one might call “Hall of Famers” in their respective professions. What could be more American than country music and football? How about Americans’ ignorance and unwillingness to do even a modicum of research? A couple of weeks ago, Brooks played a concert in Detroit. Afterwards, he posted an image of himself, on Instagram, wearing his signature cowboy hat and a jersey with the name Sanders and Barry Sanders’ retired number 20 emblazoned on the back.
Brooks wrote on the post, “Detroit/You carried me all night long/But you always have/I’m in love with you! love, g #GARTHinDETROIT.”
Fans of the singer from a more politically red demographic began to freak the hell out.
Some people tried to point out to the MAGA dum-dums that they could still enjoy Brooks’ music—I guess his performance at President Barack Obama’s 2008 inauguration and his absence from Donald Trump’s hadn’t already been tipping points for these fans. On the IG post, one fan joked, “People who think this is about Bernie Sanders also think Corona beer has a virus.”
Twitter found this particularly brilliant, a coupling of two of the tragically uninformed Trump voter’s beliefs.
Hall of Famer Barry Sanders found it funny.
And Garth Brooks did his best to keep everything nice and light.