Tags

, , , , , ,

Well gentle readers, I’m afraid I have to dive into the swirling cesspool of NFL misbehavior once again.  It was only on May 24 in NFL: Just As Soon As I Adjust My Wig that I reluctantly wrote about this particularly juvenile matter.  Unlike the NFL, President Trump is demonstrating real leadership.

Mr. Trump recently and reasonably observed it makes no sense to invite to the White House people that insult him and don’t want to be there. Normal Americans recognize this as common sense.  When self-important athletes decide they’re going to make a vague political point by insulting the President of the United States, why should he play along and let them win?  He made the point in response to various media talking heads and progressive social justice warriors whining that Mr. Trump shouldn’t punish an entire sports team just because a few players don’t like him and publically announce they’re not going to show up at the White House with the rest of the team.

Legal Insurrection reports: 

Trump recently disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles from visiting the White House after the full team refused to visit, but rather, planned to send a small delegation to represent the entire team.

The official White House response criticized kneeling during the National Anthem.

Several of the players and their supporters whined that they didn’t actually kneel during the last season, so he was wrong to disinvite them when they insulted him and demonstrated disrespect for his office, but that’s not quite Mr. Trump’s point.  A great many NFL players did kneel, but it was the Eagles that were actively insulting the President of the United States with their juvenile fit of pique: “He’s mean to NFL players!  He criticized them, so we’re not coming to the White House, so there, nyaaah!”

Hold on a moment please gentle readers, while I turn off the irony alarm.  Any coach worth a bucket of warm spit will affirm the primary principle of a team is everyone works together toward the same goal.  “There is no “I” in team,” they say, one of many pithy aphorisms, all with the same point: there is no individualism in teams, no putting a single player, or two, or three, or ten, over the welfare of the team, the group endeavor, the single purpose, which is training under the leadership of the coach to win.  The team does team things as a team: together.

This is where the NFL made its most serious mistake and went down the road to social justice–“get woke, go broke”–glory. The moment any NFL team allowed any player to break the rules, to stand out, to think themselves something special, to exalt their own sociopolitical tantrums over the business of football–winning games–that’s when they cut their own business throats.  Once a team allowed players to get away with that, there would be no end to their demands, demands that would have constituted a breach of contract not many years earlier.  Remember when professional athletes were expected to sport neat, manly haircuts?

The other element is inescapably racial. With some 70% of the League comprised of black players, the use of the race card as a form of extortion was inevitable.  Combined with Social Justice ideology, which requires eternal outrage and grievance, it wasn’t necessary for players to have concrete, rational concerns and arguments, merely to repeat pre-programmed progressive narratives of injustice and oppression.  While players seem immune to the irony involved in huge, steroid-infused adolescents in adult bodies being paid millions of dollars for playing a children’s game claiming to be members of an oppressed, racially abused class, that irony has not been lost on normal Americans, who are not impressed.

Let’s return to Legal Insurrection to see how far ahead of these players Mr. Trump is:

Friday, Trump said he would ask NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to recommend people for pardon, people they believe have been treated unfairly by the justice system.

CNN reported Friday:

‘I’m going to ask them to recommend to me people who were unfairly treated,’ Trump said at White House Friday. Trump’s contentious relationship with the NFL reached a peak last year when he lambasted players who took a knee during the National Anthem to protest institutionalized racism and police brutality.

‘You have a lot of people in the NFL in particular, but in sports leagues, they’re not proud enough to stand for our National Anthem. I don’t like that,’ Trump said Friday, also insisting that players should not remain in the locker room when the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ is playing.

‘What I’m going to do is, I’m going to say to them instead of talk … I am going to ask all of those people to recommend to me — because that’s what they’re protesting — people that they think were unfairly treated by the justice system,’ Trump said. ‘And I understand that.’

He added, ‘If the athletes have friends of theirs or people they know about that have been unfairly treated by the system, let me know.

Kemberlee Kaye commented:

The entire point of kneeling during the national anthem (regardless of how insufferable Kaepernick may be) was to bring awareness of just that. Tactics for doing so and the message it sends to those who fight and have fought for our right to proudly fly the flag certainly leave something to be desired. Sure, there are probably some who took part in the protest whose motives were less than pure, but that’s certainly not true for them all.

For all his blustering and bloviating, Trump appears to be listening to those desperate to be heard and that’s certainly worthy of commendation.

I’ve been watching the general commentary on this issue, and while Kaye is on the right track, most are not.  Even this has provoked a great deal of criticism–of Mr. Trump!  The general consensus of the commentariat seems to be that Mr. Trump is being mean to the innocent players.  They seem to think he is somehow obligated to invite winning teams to the White House to praise them even if they disrespect not only America, but particularly denigrate Mr. Trump.

I certainly understand.  I always want to invite to my home people that ridicule and berate me.  Doesn’t everyone?

What just about everyone seems to be missing is Donald Trump just called the player’s bluff.  He knows most of those engaging in “protests” about supposed injustice and racism haven’t the slightest clue about those issues.  They’re just reflexively repeating progressive, social justice talking points.  While claiming to be protesting racism, they’re engaging in it.  Most of them have no idea about the facts of any individual case, nor could they name anyone what was actually the victim of actual racism, police misconduct, or any other form of oppression.  Pressed for a specific instance, some might name Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, or Freddie Gray.   They would doubtless do it with righteous indignation, but in every case, they would be entirely wrong.  They’d be relying on racist, progressive narratives, which is precisely what most of them are doing when they kneel on the field during the national anthem or flash a black power salute.

They would not know, and might not care, that Michael Brown was a drugged robber who was killed in a continuing and brutal assault on a police officer who was entirely justified, legally and morally, in killing him.  The same would be true of Freddie Gray, a drugged, small-time drug dealer who, after being legitimately arrested,  accidentally killed himself, setting off a progressive tornado that irreparably damaged the lives of six honest police officers–including several blacks–and that continues to cost black lives in Baltimore and elsewhere.  Trayvon Martin had nothing whatever to do with the police. He was a drugged thug-wannabe who tried to beat an innocent man to death and paid the price.  It was a textbook case of self-defense, nothing more.

Now President Trump, with one simple offer, has eliminated the issue.  He doesn’t have to invite ungrateful, self-righteous racists to the White House, and if they scream he doesn’t care about black people and justice, all he need do is ask them to submit the specific and actual names of people they believe have been mistreated.  He can look into those situations, and use, or decline to use, the pardon power.  “Michael Brown?  Sorry; no oppression or racism there, but thanks for bringing it to my attention.”

credit: nationalreview.com

Not only has he taken the issue off the table, he is, once again, demonstrating he is willing to deal with the concerns of the black community.  Unlike Barack Obama, Mr. Trump’s policies and actions have produced rapid, significant and important benefits for black Americans.  Most black Americans that work just as hard as anyone else providing for their families aren’t impressed by multi millionaire athletes whining about being criticized for disrespecting the flag or the office of the President. They get enough of politics every day; they don’t want to deal with it when they’re looking for a little sports entertainment.

Donald Trump demonstrated why he is so successful. He called their bluff, and they’re too self-righteous and dim to realize it.  He wins; they lose.  And these days, when Donald Trump wins, so does America.