President Donald Trump has regularly trailed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in most national polls and aims to avoid becoming the first incumbent in 32 years to fail to win a second term.
Election Day also falls on Colin Kaepernick’s birthday. Some have taken this as a positive omen for Biden, given the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback was one of Trump’s most outspoken critics during the incumbent’s first term.
Kaepernick has been a prominent figure in the Black Lives Matter movement since he first protested against police brutality and racial discrimination by kneeling during the national anthem ahead of NFL games four years ago.
Trump famously urged team owners to fire players who followed the example set by Kaepernick and knelt during the anthem.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b**** off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired’,” the president said during a rally in Alabama in September 2017.
The relevance of Kaepernick’s 33rd birthday falling on the same day Trump’s tenure at the White House wasn’t lost on Twitter.
Kaepernick’s decision to kneel transformed him into a global icon, but split public opinion in the U.S. and contributed to him being ostracized by the league, where he has been persona non grata since becoming a free agent at the end of the 2016 season.
In December last year, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league had “moved on” from Kaepernick, after the former 49er moved a workout the NFL had organized a month earlier.
Six months later, Goodell adopted a far more conciliatory tone, encouraging teams to sign the Nevada alumnus.
Even Trump went as far as suggesting the former 49er should be allowed back into the league, as long as a franchise deemed him good enough to play professional football after four years out of the game.
“The answer is absolutely I would,” the president told Washington TV station WJLA this summer when asked whether he would give Kaepernick the chance to return to the NFL.
“As far as kneeling, I would love to see him get another shot. But obviously, he has to be able to play well. If he can’t play well, I think it would be very unfair.”
In September, Kaepernick further angered some of his critics when he called for the police to be abolished after a grand jury decided not to bring criminal charges against the police officers who shot dead Breonna Taylor while serving a “no-knock warrant” back in March.
“The white supremacist institution of policing that stole Breonna Taylor’s life from us must be abolished for the safety and well being of our people,” he tweeted.
While he has been an outspoken campaigner on social justice and racial issues, Kaepernick has not joined the several NFL and NBA players who have actively campaigned to get voters registered ahead of the current elections.
Four years ago, the former 49ers quarterback opted against voting, indicating explaining he saw politics as a form of oppression.
