Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick has changed his mind about voting, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is apparently helping fuel his newfound enthusiasm for electoral politics.
A decade after Kaepernick made national headlines by kneeling during the national anthem and declared that voting would make him a hypocrite, he now says refusing to participate in elections may have been “irresponsible.”
In 2016, Kaepernick argued that voting amounted to participating in what he considered an oppressive political system.
“I’m not going to show support for that system,” Kaepernick said at the time, adding that “the oppressor isn’t going to allow you to vote your way out of your oppression.”
Ten years later, his position has changed considerably.
In his upcoming memoir, The Perilous Fight, Kaepernick says the aftermath of the 2016 election forced him to reconsider the consequences of sitting elections out.
“The realization coming out of the 2016 election is how significant the implications can be of not voting,” he told NBC News, pointing to the Supreme Court and federal judiciary as examples.
Kaepernick now says that while the intention behind his former position may have been right from his perspective, “the strategy behind it actually wasn’t.”
And he didn’t merely reconsider voting in theory.
Kaepernick revealed that he voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and Kamala Harris in 2024.
Kaepernick Finds Inspiration in Mamdani
Today, one politician in particular appears to have caught Kaepernick’s attention: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist.
“When we talk about leaders that are moving the needle right now, I think we’re seeing real impact coming out of Mamdani,” Kaepernick said.
He praised Mamdani’s focus on what he described as prioritizing people’s needs and delivering results, saying that approach has been “very refreshing” for many voters.
Kaepernick also suggested politicians like Mamdani could draw politically disillusioned Americans back into the electoral process.
He argued that many Americans who refuse to vote do so because they don’t believe politicians represent them. Seeing leaders govern differently, he said, could encourage more people to become politically engaged.
It is a striking reversal for a man who once argued that participating in elections meant lending legitimacy to an oppressive system.
Ten years later, Kaepernick isn’t sitting elections out.
He’s voting, encouraging others to participate, and pointing to Mamdani as an example of why.