Fans in low places confuse Garth Brooks' Barry Sanders jersey for a Bernie endorsement
Stereotypes aside, pop-country fans generally aren’t typically associated with the most left-leaning of political stances—this is, after all, an industry and demographic that once excommunicated the Dixie Chicks after they questioned that whole Iraq War thing. It should come as no surprise, then, that chaos reigned supreme this week when an Instagram post seemed to insinuate that the most commercially successful country musician of all time, Garth Brooks, was a supporter of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the Jewish democratic socialist who’d rather heal our dying planet than perpetuate endless wars.
This post is, of course, a shoutout to Barry Sanders, the former Detroit Lions running back and NFL Hall of Famer, and definitely not an endorsement of Sanders—Democratic primary frontrunner and, to our knowledge, still not a member of the NFL Hall of Fame. You see, Garth wore the shirt at a concert stop in Detroit this week as a nice gesture to the athlete, someone Brooks described thusly:
“I was lucky enough to be an athlete and to wear the same uniform as this guy wore in college. I was lucky to go to school with him. You guys got the greatest player in NFL history in my opinion in this jersey. I love this man.”