Tom Brady can’t catch a break from liberal nasties.
His latest crime? Posting Rudyard Kipling’s 1898 poem If on Instagram and Twitter following his fifth Super Bowl win for the New England Patriots.
If is a classic work from the Jungle Book author that was voted Best British Poem of all time a couple of decades ago. It’s most oft-cited lines—like “If you can keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you” and “If you can meet with triumph and disaster/ And treat those two imposters just the same”—have become odes to self-confidence and humility in the context of sporting contests.
The poem has been featured in Apocalypse Now, adapted into a song by Joni Mitchell, read out on the BBC to conclude their 1998 World Cup soccer coverage, and used by the Boston Red Sox for a video tribute last year to retiring player David ‘Big Papi’ Ortiz.
But when Brady, who has already been savaged for his ties to Trump and labeled a white supremacist, posts If—it’s a big deal. Why? Because Kipling was a proud colonialist, who coined the phrase “white man’s burden” and is a marked man in the eyes of social justice warriors suffering from an acute case of what historian William Manchester referred to as “generational narcissism.”
Brady+ Trump+ Kipling= Internet uproar.
Yahoo writer Daniel Roberts tried to whip up a storm tweeting: “Considering all the vitriol over Brady’s friendship w/ Trump, mayyybe Rudyard Kipling (“The White Man’s Burden) not the best poet to quote.”
“Tom Brady quoting a Rudyard Kipling poem on Facebook after repeatedly being called a white supremacist is…not great,” said another skeptic. “Do you think Tom Brady realizes the irony of quoting a Kipling poem to celebrate a super bowl win? Especially without even crediting RK,” asked William Streit.
On Instagram most Brady followers loved the poem but hatred still abounded. Fumed “dangirl53”: “Love you Tom, support you 100%, but, the writer of your poem-Rudyard Kipling, is a racist bastard. Do your research. Our country is extremely divided by racial discord. Let’s promote those who are working to bring us together.”
The bigger scandal is that Brady quoted the poem in full without crediting Kipling: