Freedom is pretty great, isn’t it? Here in the United States we love to talk about freedom. The people who love to talk about it the most, who bathe in the idea of American exceptionalism, tend to be those who rarely (if ever) travel abroad. They love to speak about the world in platitudes, always through the lens that the God-loving USA is free, and nowhere else is.
It’s a refrain the majority of Western foreigners find hilarious. Folks in the U.K? They’re free. Europe? Free as well. Australia, Canada, New Zealand — yeah, they’re free. There are 20 nations broadly recognized as having freedom of expression, with the USA ranking third behind Denmark and Norway. Sure, all those nations might not let you brandish a firearm in public or hurl hate speech at people — but denying that doesn’t make them “un-free.” It’s a little like a child claiming they’re being neglected because they don’t get dessert at every meal.
We’re having this discussion on a sports website because sports are, and always have been, inherently political. It’s impossible to divorce the two, as much as you might want them to be separate. We have overt examples like Adolf Hitler refusing to shake hands with non-Aryan athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists at the 1968 games to stand for black pride and civil rights, and more recently, Russia being banned from international competition for its geopolitical military invasion of Ukraine. We also have more subtle examples, times where athletes used their notoriety and stature to support political candidates or movements. Muhammad Ali stood against the Vietnam War, Colin Kaepernick kneeled for Black Lives Matter, LeBron James came under fire for voicing his opinions on civil rights, and Jaxson Dart took the stage at a Donald Trump rally.
Dart made a choice by grinning on stage with the sitting president, one who happens to be historically unpopular, the most divisive in modern history, and largely reviled in both New York and New Jersey, the states the New York Giants represent. Dart was absolutely free to introduce Trump, he’s free to support him — and personally, I don’t want to see him lose his job for exercising his freedom.
That crucially doesn’t mean Dart should be free of any criticism or allowed to dance away from his decision, because his teammates are absolutely justified in their right to question both their teammate’s motives and how he views them in the locker room. The strongest condemnation has come from defensive end Abdul Carter, who made waves when Dart was first introducing Trump on stage, and has since continued to address his issues with the appearance.
Carter isn’t just a football player, he’s also a practicing Muslim. Trump’s first term in office was partially defined by his vilification of the Islamic faith through Executive Order 13769, which sought to ban entry to the United States for foreign nationals from almost exclusively Muslim countries, which quickly had it characterized as a “muslim ban.” Now his second term has been focused on military action against Muslims both in Gaza through support of Israel, and now through the Iran war — which is still ongoing. In addition, Trump has launched verbal attacks against Rep. Ilhan Omar, who he told to “go back to where she came from” in 2019, as well as helping stoke vitriol against New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, when Trump threatened to withdraw funding from New York if they elected Mamdani.
Carter is entirely within his rights to take his own stand against the president when Dart started this conversation inside the Giants by taking political action. Silence is being complicit, and he wants to be clear that he doesn’t align himself with the team’s quarterback when it comes to his beliefs off the field. Now backup QB Jameis Winston is trying to broker unity, saying that Dart and Carter will come together and set an example, while also being careful not to gloss over the atrocities of the past.
Dart has spoken as well, but limited his remarks on the appearance to a pre-written statement and has not taken any questions. Even in an instance where a white athlete started the drama, it’s become incumbent upon his black teammates to answer the lion’s share of questions about their teammate. Unfortunately, this is par for the course.
History has shown broad inequity when it comes to repercussions against athletes of color for taking political action, compared to their white compatriots. Muhammad Ali was stripped of his World Heavyweight Title and was banned from boxing for three years, Colin Kaepernick was functionally blackballed by the NFL, but the United States Mens’ hockey team and Jaxson Dart have only suffered minor PR mishaps as a result.
The Giants are desperately trying to just move past this and focus on the 2026 season, one that promises to be a major comeback with John Harbaugh at the helm, and following a staggering 2026 NFL Draft haul — but that has been difficult as Trump continues to mention Dart on social media and TV, boasting about how attractive the Giants’ QB is.
The path forward is Dart’s to take. We know he held a sit-down meeting with his teammates last week to try to explain his decision to take the stage with President Trump, but we don’t know whether he was able to win them over or not. We all know this was about more than simply appearing with the president of the United States because of the baggage associated with this administration. Dart became a willing member of the political machine, and he made that choice freely.
Others are free to dislike him because of it.
