Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Trump and the Professional Athletes
I will say this for Donald Trump. He really knows how to hit a nerve. He has an instinctive understanding of wrongs swept under the carpet and of how to get those who perpetrate those wrongs to rise up and do themselves harm.
I do not personally much like his way of going about things. Schoolboy taunts seem to me childish and unpresidential, and they can be counter-effective. But let’s face it: with this weapon, he made mincemeat of his Republican opponents, and he defeated Hillary Clinton. He knows something that those of us who are more conventional do not quite get.
Every once in a while, however, I get a glimpse of what Trump is up to, and then I really am impressed. His attack on the NFL could not be more timely.
I do not have a television, but I grew up with one, and I long owned one. I have not watched any professional games for some time, but I used to watch — and what struck me about them was the way that the NFL, the NBA, and the baseball franchises wrapped themselves in the flag. Theirs was, they knew, an endeavor that brought Americans of all races, of both sexes, and of every conceivable political orientation together. For a brief moment, we put aside what divided us and celebrated our common love of excellence, and they ably exploited this fact.
In the last few years, however, ESPN and Sports Illustrated have done everything that they could to politicize sports. It is all part of a national crusade in our schools and universities and in every walk of life to demonize those who are conservative and those who are religious and to silence them. This crusade has a quasi-religious, sanctimonious character — and there are a great many Americans who strongly dislike what they are doing.
This crusade has a history, and it has a subtext. It began with Barack Obama’s campaign for the Presidency. In her stump speech, in February and March 2008, Mrs. Obama asserted that Americans are “cynical” and “mean” and have “broken souls” and that the lives “that most people are living” have “gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.” Towards the end of his campaign in that year, her husband announced that he would “fundamentally change America,” and when he was elected he termed his administration “The New Foundation.”
Nothing about Barack Obama has ever been crystal clear. He is now and always has been a poser and an operator of the first rank. The implication, the subtext of what he said, was nonetheless clear enough. It was that there was something “fundamentally” wrong with America — that we should be assumed of the Founding, ashamed of our history, ashamed of ourselves and that a Messiah had arrived — Nancy Pelosi called him “the One” — to steer us away from our shameful heritage and set us on the right path. In keeping with this, Barack Obama persistently sought to demonize everyone who opposed his program, and the mainstream media and the administrations of our universities soon took up this theme with zest.
Ordinary folk do not much like being demonized, and Donald Trump knew better than any other Republican how to give form to their inchoate resentment. He channeled it. He stoked it — and when Hillary Clinton responded by dismissing millions of her fellow Americans as “a basket of deplorables and irredeemables,” she forfeited the election. Those Americans whom she had in mind recognized the religious tone of this language; they knew that the only proper thing to do with the irredeemable is to cast them into the outer darkness; and Donald Trump showed them the light and a path out of that darkness. Would any other Republican have had the courage? Theirs is the party of surrender, the party of the white flag.
Ronald Reagan had a way of getting his liberal opponents to shoot themselves in the foot — simply by articulating truths that everyone was forbidden to utter — that, for example, the Soviet Union was an “evil empire.” Trump has the same gift in spades. Like Reagan, he is not much liked by the Republican establishment. But that does not stop him.
The political demonstrations that we have seen on the part of players at the professional football games are a part of the crusade initiated by Barack Obama. It all began with Colin Kaepernick a bit more than a year ago. In keeping with the propensity for our professional sports teams to wrap themselves with the flag, the NFL Game Operations Manual stipulates:
The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem.
During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.
Colin Kaepernik publicly, ostentatiously defied that rule. Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, has always run a tight ship. In the past, he has been quick to fine or otherwise restrain players who sought to advertise their religious beliefs, their solidarity with those killed on 9/11, and their regret that police officers had been killed in a domestic terrorist attack.
This time, however, he did nothing, and President Obama, in well-honed fashion, waded in to exploit Kaepernick’s insolent gesture: “I want Mr. Kaepernick and others who are on a knee, I want them to listen to the pain that that may cause somebody who, for example, had a spouse or a child who was killed in combat, and why it hurts them to see somebody not standing … I also want people to think about the pain that he may be expressing about somebody who’s lost a loved one that they think was unfairly shot.”
It was a clever maneuver, and it worked as intended. Now the door is open. Professional athletes feel entitled to express their scorn for this country on their employers’ time and to make our putting up with this a part of the price we pay for watching them play. None of the employers has displayed any backbone, and Donald Trump, sensing an opportunity, has outed the former as scoundrels unworthy of the honor conferred on them and the latter as cowards.
Attendance at NFL games is dramatically down. ESPN viewership is dramatically down as well — and the President of the United States has shown American patriots that they can make the network, the NFL, and the players pay for their puerile self-indulgence. As in the days of Ronald Reagan, who was always breaking political taboos (albeit in a gentler and less crude way than Donald Trump), liberals, such as Jonathan Chait, are celebrating what they take to be a great faux pas — oblivious to the fact that time and again this man has profited from such faux pas and that they are giving free publicity to remarks that a great many Americans find heartening.
Perhaps, the most intriguing response has been that of the man whose unwillingness to enforce his league’s rules has brought this on. First, Roger Goodell said, “The way we reacted today, and this weekend, made me proud. I’m proud of our league.” Then, he added,
The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture. There is no better example than the amazing response from our clubs and players to the terrible natural disasters we’ve experienced over the last month. Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.
I have trouble imagining anything that Goodell could have said that would have seemed more lame and been more embarrassing. His players brazenly attack the “sense of unity” that exists “in our country and our culture.” They do so in defiance of the rules of his league. He does not have the backbone to enforce those rules. The President of the United States calls him on it, and he expresses regret for the “lack of respect for the NFL” that this demonstrates. With this as a rallying cry, who could feel any respect for the NFL?
One might, of course, argue that this is a tempest in a teapot — which it is. But from such tempests, as Barack Obama understood, grave changes come. Colin Kaepernick, the players who have followed his example, Barack Obama, and the likes of Nancy Pelosi want to legitimize hatred of the United States and of everything that it stands for and make it a respectable position to espouse in our national discourse.
If they succeed, treason will soon be celebrated as the true patriotism. That we are on this path was made evident a short time ago when the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard conferred its approval on Chelsea Manning by inviting him to become a Fellow at its Institute of Politics. Harvard was forced to back off. It would be a very fine thing if the same thing were to happen to the National Football League.
There is one thing that is guaranteed. If ESPN and the teams in the NFL start to lose money, this nonsense will stop.
Published in Sports
@hoyacon: Re your aside, we may not disagree on as much as you think. I have never once used crude language professionally (other than in quotes) in 36 years of intense trial work. Not my style.
I have, in both of my professional careers with the military.
To my (slight) shame.
Donald Trump reminds me of the William F. Buckley quote:
Trump is that common guy randomly picked from a phone book, a guy that taunts and brags and bullies. I think he understands the common man more so than any president of my lifetime, better than even Ronald Reagan. Now, he doesn’t have the class of Reagan, far from it, but he understands Americans.
Yes, I think that was one of Paul’s best points, the contrast between Obama and Trump.
Yes, they’ll recover. They will have to eat some humble pie. I suspect they will have to enforce their own rules shortly.
No. It’s the ability to comprehend and take advantage of the zeitgeist. And I think Reagan was every bit as good, if not better. To employ a marketing idea, both men identified a need and provided a product to meet it. Not to say they don’t have sincere beliefs consistent with our philosophy and traditions. Even Bernie thinks he’s doing the right thing.
Thank you, Paul. I think you spiked it; drop of understanding in chaotic times is indeed a balm.
Dude, you just so harshed my mellow.
So Kapernick did his nonsense last year, and the end result of that with his mediocre skills resulted in him not being signed up for any team this year. Money was lost a signal had been sent and everything was healing over. But, Trump picks the scab, and reopens the wound. And they have the lesson to learn? I guess we will see how this cookie crumbles. No skin off my nose I don’t watch Football or TV in general unless it appears on Netflix.
When will the President learn his lesson? When will his nonsense stop? When will we have a President that doesn’t get his kicks by driving wedges into society for personal amusement and political gain? Three and a half more years of this… by the end will there be anything left untainted? Will anything be left that has not been atomized into red and blue particles of partisan hate and contempt? Let the childish pleading of “he hit me back first” begin.
@instigator, if they gave out black belts for profanity, my username would be Sensei. Nothing made me prouder than when I’d go off on a tear, and senior NCOs would ask, “Hey, sir, that was awesome; you mind if I use that?”
Just call me mr. sunshine.
Not quite true. It was starting to spread before Trump got involved. High schoolers were starting to do it too.
No, it wasn’t. The fact that Kaepernick remained unemployed was a constant source of wangst on the part of the Left.
Trump basically dared the NFL to poke their thumbs in the eyes of 70+% of the country, and they took the bait.
FTFY. If you think Trump is the one who politicized sports, you haven’t been paying attention.
This is good. What kind of regular audience does Ricochet main feed get? Do folks routinely forward good articles like this? Is there any way of knowing? I don’t do face book or twitter so don’t know about that universe.
My point is that Trump has done nothing to unpoliticize them. He just throws more fuel on every fire he can domestically. And his supporters cheer him on, then the liberals come around and throw more too. And everyone complains that “they started it”. I would love to see some one for once try to defuse the situation. No one seems mature enough to try or even consider it. But why pick on Trump you may ask? Granted I don’t like the guy, but it seems to me that as Head of State (the President) part of his duties are to try to talk people down from these kind of ledges. Obama seemed to take immense pleasure in trolling the Right, and this was criticized by me and all of you as unpresidential. Now Trump trolls the Left incessantly and you all clap.
Just think about what you just wrote, “He dared them to poke a finger in the eye of 70% of people”. Why even make that proposition if not to inflame the issue further? As president he did not need to weigh in on this debate and if he did his responsibility would have been to try and calm everyone not escalate the issue. It is not his job to express opinions about the action of athletes.
So I stay away from the Internet for a weekend, and when I return yesterday I find that the “culture wars” had been reignited over … the NFL’s actions in response to Trump’s comments about appropriate decorum during the playing of the National Anthem?
Sorry, but my response to this “news” is a big yawn. Who cares? Who cares if the athletes sit, stand, stretch, play card games, or take bathroom breaks (in the proper location of course) during the Anthem? I understand the arguments against the athletes’ actions, but I believe the best response is to ignore them or, if one is unable to ignore them, to just turn off the TV. (Though if you do like football — and I am not a huge fan myself, baseball being my sport of choice — this issue doesn’t seem important enough to be worth denying yourself the fun of following the games.)*
Similarly, who cares if the President decides to chime in on this pointless debate? If the President had actually attempted to take action against the kneelers, that would be one thing, but his comments during the rally and subsequent tweets were nothing more than the typical politician’s commentary on current events, just expressed more crudely. If Trump issues an Executive Order I’ll check back in. Otherwise, it’s nothing but more of the same. When will the Left learn to just ignore the man for heaven’s sake!
Thus, I find myself in my usual position on politics — there are few, if any commentators, who seem to share my beliefs about this topic.
* I try not to let entertainers’ political beliefs or personal peccadilloes interfere with my decision of whether to partake of the entertainment in question, for if I did, there would be virtually no entertainment left for me to enjoy. Not only would virtually every movie become off limits, but so would A Song of Ice and Fire and many other novels, both great and and those that are merely enjoyable, Wagner’s operas and almost all other classical music (not to mention pop music), ancient Greek drama and philosophy, and on and on. I try to judge art only by its quality and entertainment solely by whether it entertains me. Of course, I’m not always consistent about this…
I mostly agree with this, but I think it’s different when they shove it in my face. If they want to protest, that’s fine, but they need to keep it off the field.
I think it is now undeniable that Trump has very good street smarts. Trump seems to know what makes an ordinary male tick, and he is superb at playing off of that and using it to his advantage. I don’t care about this issue with the NFL and the National Anthem, but many do, and those that do feel strongly about it are almost all on Trump’s side. There is a lot of bad news these days — the Republicans’ continuing failure to pass even one minor reform to ObamaCare, for instance — but Trump was able to turn the conversation to a topic where most will agree with him. It was brilliant; and, I believe, intentional.
(It won’t move the needle on anything that matters, but that’s another story.)
Oh contraire , it always matters when the Regressive’s get a black eye.
This is why you have no understanding of this. Players’ views on our society and their disrespect for our patriotic rituals are not part of the package ticket purchasers and tv viewers are paying for. When they depart and advertisers follow who then will employ these fools. I think the league, team owners, and players will figure this out. President Trump can move on.
Not sure if this comment is meant as satirical. But Mr. Rahe made a pretty convincing case that it’s the league, the players, ESPN et al that are needing to learn the lesson of not being political where it’s not expected or welcome and that it is dividing people. Trump is just putting a highlighter marker on it. I don’t think he’s off base.
Last year was probably more timely for Kapernick to make a statement. And yes it looks like it hurt him this year in the aftermath. But it’s really hard to see any positive message in the players circling the wagons to push this ‘down with America’ attitude. It’s really about pushing for conformity of political viewpoint on the left. And I thought conformity used to be a bad word. All it’s doing is leaving a sour taste in the mouths of traditional sports fans.
I share this view. We need to fight back. The politicization comes from the left; it touches every walk of life; and that will be the new normal . . . if they are not made to pay a high price.
Yes. He stated an opinion with which the vast majority of the country agrees. If he were threatening legal consequences* that’d be one thing, but he isn’t. This nonsense about him being “divisive” when the Left wants to make disrespecting the country itself a consequence-free statement is ludicrous.
* I called him out for saying flag burners should lose their citizenship.
How would it be if we took the National Anthem and the flag out of the football game agenda. If they can’t respect the flag, don’t let them play around with it. It’s too important for that. The flag doesn’t belong in a celebration of NFL players, one of whom is arrested every seven days for lowdown, sleazy behavior. It doesn’t belong in the hands of coaches who can’t navigate a question this simple. It doesn’t belong in the hands of “owners.” Who goes around talking about their “owner?”
Take the flag away from them. Take it where it’s welcome.
Yes. To me, this is a one way street. Honor our country through its symbols or take it away from them at these events.
That would be a “win” for the people who are feeding the distorted “facts” to those football players.
They don’t care. The ongoing brouhaha is a win for them, too.
I disagree, I believe that the ongoing brouhaha is not a win for them – because the fans are reacting negatively, and if that continues that will have a bad effect on the profitability of the entire entertainment edifice. Which would tend to cause a course-correction on the part of the owners, which would necessarily lead to modification of the behavior of the players.
Now, if the fans decide that they can live with the protests (which appear as disrespect for the National Anthem, whatever “statements” the players make at the press conferences), that might be a win for the Hate-America faction, or it might not. I can imagine nuances of just how this all plays out, that could go either way.
If, on the other hand, the National Anthem is [now] removed from the NFL games, then the Hate-America faction wins because there is one less venue in which the “public ritual” of showing respect for the ideal of America happens. And showing respect for America gets “denormalized.” And we get a step closer to the point at which showing respect for America gets treated as public prayer (and we know how socially-acceptable that is … not).
If the playing of the National Anthem at these games had never started, we’d be having a different discussion – but if you know of a functioning time machine, I’ve got all sorts of ideas of what might be done with it.
I agree with you if this happens. I hope.