Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., called out Major League Baseball on Tuesday for moving its All-Star game from Atlanta to “woke-atopia” Denver on Newsmax TV.
“They’re moving it from a predominantly black, working-class community in Atlanta, Georgia, to a very woke, white, hip, let’s get stoned community in Colorado,” Burchett told John Bachman.
Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, announced last week that the MLB would move the All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver due to the new Georgia election integrity laws.
“I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB Draft,” Manfred said. “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.”
The controversial voting law simply requires voters to show a state-issued ID when requesting an absentee ballot, among other things.
Former President Donald Trump has since called for a boycott of Major League Baseball.
Democrats, led by Stacey Abrams, have vigorously opposed election integrity improvements in the state since they manipulated voting laws last fall in a lawsuit settlement with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Yet Abrams now wants major corporations to reconsider their boycotts of the state.
“One lesson of boycotts is that the pain of deprivation must be shared to be sustainable,” Abrams said, suggesting that black Americans will “bear the brunt of these actions.”
In his TV appearance, Burchett emphasized the effects that Manfred’s decision would have on working class communities.
He argued that Major League Baseball clearly prioritizes America’s elites by pandering to them while making decisions that hurt normal Americans.
“So I think it very clearly shows where their priorities are, where their morals are, and they’re not with the average American. And it grieves me. Atlanta Braves, they are America’s team, dadgummit,” Burchett added.
