Head coach Bruce Pearl of the Auburn Tigers gestures during the first round of the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament versus Yale Bulldogs held at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena on March 22, 2024, in Spokane, Washington. | Source: C. Morgan Engel / Getty
The head coach of one of the top men’s college basketball teams has shamelessly shared the latest evidence that he sympathizes with Donald Trump after authoring a social media post critical of Vice President Kamala Harris littered with language embraced by right-wing extremists.
Bruce Pearl on Monday morning responded to a social media post by Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton that disingenuously claimed Harris “is so extreme she wants to kick you off the health insurance you get through your job.”
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Pearl, in turn, quoted that post and attacked what he described as Harris’ “socialist, woke progressive beliefs” that he claimed without evidence she was “changing” or “hiding” for political purposes. He punctuated his post by adding, notably: “We won’t get fooled again!”
Whether Pearl wants to admit it, his social media post attacking Harris carries the strong suggestion that he supports Trump’s candidacy, and more.
Pearl, a white man who is Jewish, could come under fire for speaking out in such strong terms against the candidacy of a woman who could become the first Black and Asian president of the United States.
Pearl’s race could particularly factor in what is sure to be an ensuing firestorm because of his influential position leading a group of mostly Black young men. That is especially true since Trump has referred to Black people and nations in derogatory terms to go along with his decades-long documented history of discriminating against Black people.
Journalist Roland Martin cautioned “all Black ballplayers and their parents considering” playing for Auburn under Pearl, whom he called “trash” for the attack on Harris.
“There are many other SEC schools to consider,” Martin added. “Choose accordingly.”
Not for nothing, Cotton posted a screenshot from an NBC News article that was published back when Harris was a presidential candidate in 2019 — well before her historic election to the vice presidency and her current candidacy for the White House.
Cotton’s post referred to her calls back then for “Medicare for all,” a position that she no longer supports in her current iteration as a presidential candidate.
But, as CNN pointed out earlier this month, falsely claiming that Harris is still a proponent of the policy has conveniently become “a Trump campaign attack line.”
In other words, Pearl lashed out at Harris under the falsest of pretenses that have been championed by the Trump campaign in what was likely a knee-jerk reaction to promote the MAGA ideals his social media post suggests he upholds.
To be sure, the term “woke” has effectively been co-opted by conservatives in usage that is tantamount to the N-word, critics have said.
Pearl has previously taken to social media to express other political opinions along these same lines.
That includes reacting to the failed assassination attempt on Trump last month when Pearl blamed the political violence in Western Pennsylvania on “the media” and “Justice Dept” in criticisms that echo sentiments espoused by Trump.
Later that same day, Pearl rejected comparisons of Trump to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and staunchly pushed back against a New Republic article that he said suggested “Trump in 2024 is Hitler in 1932” despite the existence of the Republican-led Project 2025 agenda that aims for sweeping restrictions of civil freedoms and liberties.
Pearl, notably, has also criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for not doing enough to support Israel following a terror attack from the Hamas militant group in October.
This is America.
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