Sunday, September 24, 2017

Presidential Skattershot Amplifies Right-Wing PC?
Why would our president take time out from his busy schedule solving problems for American families to fabricate reasons to be outraged at some of our most beloved athletes?

The president attacked football players who take a knee during the anthem. ESPN reports that the first baseball player took a knee last night.

The president also uninvited the Golden State Warriors to the White House (despite the fact that no invitation had been made yet, but we cannot let factual errors distract us when we are discussing a president with more than a 1000 lies to his credit after only six months in office). ESPN reports a response from Curry, Kerr, and LeBron demonstrating that all three are more thoughtful and better leaders than our president.

Like most stories about being unfit, indecent, and dangerous...all we need is the president's own words and actions to persuade us...but it is worth reading what our athletes have said in response this time. Role models.

Because the president's own words and actions are enough...and because his loudest critics include many leading Republicans...we know that these are not partisan attacks, this is not fake news, and cries calling for 'the media to give him a chance' are just about as clueless as the president himself. Bubble talk.

I am a life-long athlete and sports fan. I have been to countless games. I have seen many, many average American men in these crowds drinking beer, sitting down, facing each other to high five or talk during the anthem. And these guys now see taking a knee as disrespectful?

Taking a knee has never been a sign of disrespect. Quite the opposite. It is well chosen because it is a sign of respect & protest at the same time. Because I love my country, my protest about the ways we fall short of our shared aspirations is best expressed by taking a knee as a sign of loving and respectful protest.

And our president misses all of this to, instead, amplify the stupidest voices in the room. To put the knee-jerk old resentments of an angry and misinformed old man in a place of prominence rather than treating them as the merely cringe-worthy ravings of elders we know have, very sadly, lost their marbles.

It may not happen, but I hope all players in the NFL today take a knee in response to the president's ill-advised attack on the league's players.

Finally, is the odd response here some sort of Right-Wing PC? It is like the outrage about a non-existent war on Christmas. Manufactured outrage, as if we don't have enough things to actually be concerned about already.

No comments:

Post a Comment