A President Trump supporter says he has been kicked out of countless stores and card tournaments simply for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.
Joe Brennan, a champion Magic: The Gathering player, made headlines last week after he was banned from an upcoming tournament over alleged behavioral issues stemming from anonymous complaints. However, most supporters pointed to a different culprit: the fact that other game players simply do not like Brennan for wearing his MAGA hat at tournaments.
‘There was a player that had a play mat with Trump’s bloody, severed head next to a guillotine on it.’
After Brennan’s ban, it was not hard to find posts online referring to him as a “Nazi” who made people “uncomfortable” with his hat or others that called for even greater restrictions on him.
Mind Rot
Brennan has triggered liberals in his space for years, and the fact that he is seen as one of the best players in the world and the “poster child” for vintage Magic cards, all while wearing a MAGA hat, does not bode well for his online reputation. Past posts from 2023 that show threads complaining about Brennan wearing his hat while “knowing it irritates people” are still available.
In a 2024 Twitter post, a user asked, “With Nazi s**t finally being cancellable can we kick Joe Brennan out of eternal magic?”
Still, dozens of players stood up for Brennan after his ban and signed a letter asking for an adequate resolution. The completely reasonable document riled up even more agitators, who Brennan said went after his supporters.
“People [were] getting doxxed and extorted into giving money to charities that they may or may not have supported otherwise, but they were kind of pseudo-canceled,” Brennan told Blaze News. “Basically, as your penance you have to give money to this charity to show that you’re on the right team and things like that.”
Brennan called the reactions “egregious,” but also expressed great discomfort with the idea that not only were individuals engaging in such behavior but they “felt comfortable posting pictures of their messages engaging in that behavior and bragging about it, as if they knew that the community would celebrate them for doing ‘the right thing’ for doxxing and extorting these people for signing their names on this letter.”
Virtue’s Ruin
No stranger to a ban, Brennan revealed to Blaze News that these acts were just the latest in a years-long battle.
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Joe Brennan after winning the 2019 NYSE Open tournament. Photo courtesy Joe Brennan
Brennan stressed that he does not mind anyone wearing political attire or messaging in stores, public settings, or at tournaments; he simply wants to be able to wear his, too.
Describing the Magic card scene as like “the Seattle or the Portland” of hobby communities, Brennan said tournaments are rife with left-wing displays that are never challenged.
Bernie Sanders, President Obama, and even pro-Palestine materials are consistently on display, Brennan told Blaze News, while providing pictures of Magic players wearing shirts like “Smoke Meth & Hail Satan.”
“Even last year at this tournament there was a player that had a play mat with Trump’s bloody, severed head next to a guillotine on it,” Brennan explained.
Cast Out
The progressive bias even extends to brick-and-mortar locations. Reasserting that he does not mind if a company has political displays or allows patrons to wear attire he disagrees with, Brennan said that there have been many occasions when he would walk into a store and immediately face a ban over his MAGA hat.
“Most of the time I would just walk into the store, and oftentimes it was stores that had known me for years, but they would say, ‘Hey, either you have to leave,’ without really any discussion, or some of them would say, ‘You have to either take your hat off or leave.'”
Brennan has even faced bans despite being on amicable terms with organizers, before arriving at an event to face a public excommunication.
“[The tournament organizer] kicks me out in front of everybody as soon as I walk in the door. … It seemed to me like he was looking to make a public spectacle, like a virtue signal.”
Despite the ongoing crowd of distractions, Brennan has stayed out of the mud. In the most recent instance, he even reached out to the company that banned him, looking for a solution.
Shockingly, the two parties came to terms.
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Collective Restraint
With the help of a fellow game player and lawyer, Brennan spoke with Card Titan, the organizers of a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tournament now in its 11th year.
While Card Titan had vaguely allegedly alluded to Brennan in a post on X about its “core values,” Brennan was surprised when the company agreed to put out a joint statement.
Both parties said they agreed to “bring down the temperature” and attempt to find unity. The statement also said “political discrimination has no place” in the community and that “wearing a MAGA hat” is “not a legitimate reason to remove” someone from an event.
Brennan said he was shocked that Card Titan agreed to the statement and said it was the first step in such a direction that the company or any relevant tournament host has ever made in their community.
“At this point I don’t believe that Card Titan in any way was discriminating against me like past companies certainly have,” Brennan explained. “But I do believe that the most likely scenario is probably that whoever made the underlying complaints, or whatever they were, I assume were just politically motivated.”
Brennan’s desire for positive outcomes cannot be ignored. He even described several instances when he has bitten his tongue in order to keep the peace.
Show of Valor
For example, Brennan recalled speaking to the organizers before the 2019 NYSE Open, a Magic: The Gathering tournament in New York. Brennan revealed that organizers told him at the time that even with a $500 entry fee, they were still not breaking even and that 2019 would be the final tournament.
Not only did Brennan promise he would win the tournament, but he vowed to return the first-prize winnings to the organizers to bankroll future tournaments.
“I said, ‘Listen, don’t sweat it. I’m going to go win the event, and I will give you back the first-place prize. … I will give you back that prize, and you’ll be able to run the next event — you know, use that as your startup money.’ And I did that,” Brennan remembered.
Brennan said the prize was four copies of the card Mishra’s Workshop, currently valued between $2,500 and $3,200 USD each. Due to his generosity, the tournament was able to live on. However, the next time it was set up, other players circulated a petition asking to have Brennan banned from the tournament, despite his actions to ensure that the tournament could continue.
“Now, these players didn’t know what I had done,” Brennan said. “They didn’t know that that tournament would not have existed were it not for my, you know, what I had done the previous year. But it was like, man, that really kind of hurt.”
Through all the insults and stressful situations Brennan has gone through, his spirit has not wavered, even when asked if he is putting too much faith in his opposition in terms of coming together.
“Really, we need to come together, man. This toxicity and polarization is just crazy. I would ask anybody who’s listening: Play out the current trajectory to its inevitable conclusion. And 10 years from now, is that a world you want to live in? You know? That’s all I’m saying.”
Brennan is set to return to Card Titan’s tournament in 2026. Card Titan did not return requests for comment.
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