Jerry Jones and the Cowboys along with the Arizona Cardinals kneel before the National Anthem Monday night, then stand during it. Image here.
Nancy Pelosi, the House of Representatives Minority Leader and sometime new BFF (along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer) of President Donald J. Trump told “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd Sunday that she would like to see the president as more of a unifier.
Well, Nancy, you have gotten your wish. Seems like the NFL is united – against the president.
Of course, that’s not the way El Presidente saw it. Here’s what he tweeted after players took a knee during the National Anthem in protest: “Great solidarity for our National Anthem and for our Country. Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable. Bad ratings!”
OK, let’s forget the irrelevant ratings comment as if he were a TV executive instead of president of the United States. The solidarity was against you, sir, and for the league. It wasn’t about anything else. But then, self-awareness is not the strong suit of the narcissist.
So Monday, Jerry Jones and the Cowboys along with the Arizona Cardinals took a knee before the National Anthem Monday night, then stood during it. Not to mix metaphors, but hows that for covering all your bases?
Perhaps, however, we shouldn’t ignore the ratings comment. Trump seems to think he is running a corporation and not a country. Certainly, his CFO, uh, Secretary of the Treasury Steve “Moochin’” Mnuchin (I couldn’t resist) seems to think so, noting that these players are employees who must check their First Amendment rights at the door. Really, who does he think he is, an HR manager?
A country isn’t a corporation. A company is a homogenous entity that imposes its own rules. A country has rules, too, but it also has a heterogeneous community whose myriad factions must be acknowledged if the country is to succeed.
Trump seems to have a hard time with the myriad factions thing.
Colin Kaepernick takes a knee with Eric Reid. Image here.
This all started with Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who began taking a knee during the National Anthem before games last year as a way to protest police brutality against people of color. He’s paid the price for his activism as no team has signed him. That might change now.
We all know that Trump has trouble with men like Kaepernick who are the children of white women and black men. (See President Barack Obama.) If I were the president, I wouldn’t mess with Mrs. Kaepernick.
That would be Teresa Kaepernick, who, with her husband Rick, adopted Colin.
After learning that the president said the “sons of bitches” protesting the anthem should be fired, she tweeted, “Guess that makes me one proud bitch.”
I see a T-shirt here. And a mug, and a bumper sticker and….