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As mentioned, it’s relative to (pop-) punk bands like Good Charlotte or NOFX.
We’re barely or not even a year removed from when the race-card was (successfully) played to agitate for Embiid getting the MVP instead of Jokic, to essentially zero pushback on the idpol front.
True, but that MVP decision has been widely mocked and considered a mistake by basketball fans even on Reddit. I also am not sure that it really had so much to do with race as with a reluctance by voters to give a third consecutive MVP to a guy who had, at that point, never won a championship.
You are right that being a fan of a punk band would be absolutely no problem in any corporation in the West that I can imagine, unless maybe it was Nazi punk or something. More mainstream punk is not politically controversial, although there are probably still very many workplaces where dressing like a punk would seriously impact one's ability to get hired. Modern society might be nearly completely fine with the punk movement but still, generally speaking probably most people would feel nervous if a surgeon or an airline pilot was rocking a giant blue mohawk.
Only ex-post at best, as Redditors fence-sat and waited tentatively to see that the coast was clear, especially since the Nuggets won the 2023 championship. "I'm one of the good ones, but DAE think that Jokic should had won his third MVP instead of Embiid?"
Yet, for much of the 2022-2023 season, including up through at least the midseason, Jokic was the favourite to win his third NBA MVP. In another words, at least until then and more, markets expected that voters were more than fine with rewarding Jokic his third consecutive MVP. The race-card playing that began a few weeks later corresponded to a drastic decrease in his chances.
To be fair, Embiid was on fire the last couple months of the season last year, and the race baiting wouldn't have worked if it wasn't at least a close race.
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