The anti-American anthem protests remain a pox on the NFL’s house.
League owners have scrambled for solutions to the growing problem but still haven’t reached a consensus.
Now one NFL owner is attacking Trump on the anthem protest issue, and his reasoning is absurd.
During a pre-season game in 2016, Colin Kaepernick began a dark chapter in sports history by sitting for the national anthem. After conversing with a fellow NFL player and former Green Beret Nate Boyer, Kaepernick opted to kneel for the anthem moving forward.
Kaepernick, who had become a radical leftist, claimed he was simply fighting systemic oppression of black people, but his message was stridently anti-American.
As Kaepernick’s profile among the activist left and the mainstream media grew, other NFL players followed his destructive lead, and patriotic fans turned away.
Season ticket sales and stadium attendance dropped, television ratings decreased, and advertising revenue shrank.
The two-year trend in declining popularity finally sounded the alarm bell for Commissioner Roger Goodell, who had largely sat on his hands as the unpatriotic displays multiplied.
Goodell instituted a new policy that would require players to stand for the Star-Spangled Banner, or remain in the locker room. If players violated the new rule, their teams would be subject to a fine, and each individual team would be able to determine its own punitive policy (if any) for offending players.
President Trump echoed the majority opinion of the country and railed against the ugly anti-American protests.
However, some NFL owners aren’t pleased with Trump telling the truth about the protests.
One of the frustrated owners is New York Giants co-owner and Hollywood executive producer Steve Tisch.
Outside a screening of his film “The Equalizer 2,” Tisch spoke to the Hollywood Reporter. He said of Trump:
“Hopefully he’ll have much more going on that he’s going have to deal with and should deal with and must deal with than worrying about what NFL players do…He has no understanding of why they take a knee or why they’re protesting. When the new season starts, I hope his priorities are not criticizing the NFL and telling owners what to do and what not to do.”
Tisch is way off base. The majority of Americans hate the act of disrespecting the American flag. The American president would be remiss if he didn’t comment on such a troubling display.
As for why the players kneel, they themselves don’t seem to have a clear understanding. Kaepernick kneels because he legitimately hates America. He has made that clear over and over again with his subsequent statements.
Other players say they don’t hate the country and simply want to raise awareness about what they perceive as injustice, but that nuance was never possible with a ringleader like Kaepernick, who constantly makes anti-American statements.
Also, several players began to kneel for the sole purpose of opposing Trump, who had the temerity to call out the players for their obvious disrespect to the country.
Kaepernick currently finds himself unemployed and mired in a lawsuit against the NFL. Kaepernick is hoping to sue his way back into a job on the basis of collusion, but his case doesn’t seem to have much merit.
Furthermore, Kaepernick remains wildly unpopular with the majority of fans. The other Giants’ owner John Mara said last year that he received an endless wave of negative letters when the mere notion of signing Kaepernick was broached.
Despite most people being against the anthem protests, the NFL is currently in retreat mode. The league recently suspended the new policy of requiring players to stand, so once again, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Unless the league gets its act together, it will continue to be hammered by Trump, and deservedly so.