How the NFL lost to Trump

Donald Trump isn’t exactly on a winning streak, but he is beating the NFL in a rout.

The league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, signaled the beginning of a messy, divisive retreat with a memo stating, “Like many of our fans, we believe that everyone should stand for the National Anthem.” Now he tells us.

The climbdown comes only weeks after a clueless bout of self-congratulation by the NFL and the media over widespread anthem protests. Donald Trump doesn’t play three-dimensional chess, as his supporters insist. But he does have an instinctive cunning and a grasp of a nationalistic cultural politics that shouldn’t be underestimated by his opponents, even though it almost always is.

It’d obviously be better if a president of the United States weren’t waging war on a major sports league. Trump’s intervention has been inflammatory from the beginning. He shouldn’t have called protesting players “sons of bitches” and mused about firing them like the loudest guy down at the end of the bar.

The very outrageousness of Trump’s initial riff, though, served his purposes. Trump’s lurid overstatement acted as a neon advertisement for his commonsensical underlying point, namely that players should stand during the national anthem. And it baited the NFL into fighting him on indefensible ground.

There were all sorts of unobjectionable means available for players to defy Trump, but they allowed themselves to, in effect, get double-dared into disrespecting the flag.

The perils here should have been obvious. David Frum, an incisive and unrelenting anti-Trump voice, wrote a piece for The Atlantic at the outset of the controversy, urging players not to cede the flag to Trump. They went ahead and ceded the flag to Trump. Why?

It was, in part, a classic bubble phenomenon. Sports journalists are, if anything, more left than political journalists. They were excited about being at the center of a national political debate and sticking it to Trump. Much of the media piled right behind them. On CNN and MSNBC it was rare to hear a commentator say a discouraging word about the protests, let alone warn that the NFL was stumbling into Trump’s political kill box.

It is true that, after Trump got involved, the polling on the protests showed the public more evenly divided. This doesn’t have equal significance: If you’re Donald Trump and at 40 percent or below in the polls, a 50/50 issue works for you; if you are the NFL and trying to appeal to a broad audience, a 50/50 issue is a disaster for you.

The NFL misunderstood its own nature. It’s not just that it is a game that should be a respite from political and social contention; as a quasi-national festival, it should be identified with a certain baseline of patriotism (the national anthem, the enormous American flags on the field before games, the military flyovers, etc.). Colin Kaepernick cracked this image, and Donald Trump drove a wedge through it.

It is much too early to know what the 2020 landscape will look like, but if Trump wins again, it will surely have something to do with a dynamic like the one that played out with the NFL. Trump will cause an unthinking overreaction by Democrats on a culture issue or issues, and the party will be wrong-footed by the insularity of its own political and media ecosystem.

What most repulses Democrats about Trump — his status as a nationalistic culture warrior — is what they most need to take heed of. If Hillary Clinton during the campaign had said, politely, that Colin Kaepernick should stand during the anthem, it might have been enough of a signal of old-school patriotism to working-class voters to put her over the top. Three more years of Trump will presumably make it even harder for the next Democratic nominee to tack to the center on a few cultural hot buttons.

National Anthem Update 05 ► AL, VFW & IAVA on NFL Protests Top veterans organizations jumped into the fray 25 SEP over National Football League players who have been sitting or kneeling during the national anthem in protest, in a debate taking on significance as it intensifies. The leaders of Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion lashed out at the players for “disrespecting” the national anthem after more about 250 athletes on Sunday refused to stand and pay respects when the anthem was being played. “There is a time and place for civil debate, and wearing team jerseys and using sporting events to disrespect our country doesn’t wash with millions of military veterans who have and continue to wear real uniforms on real battlefields around the globe,” said Keith Harman, a Vietnam veteran who heads the 1.7 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. “I stand for our flag and anthem, and I kneel for our fallen. That’s what patriots do.” But not everyone believes the players’ actions were disrespectful to veterans. In contrast, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of American issued a statement urging tolerance for differing perspectives that have emerged over the issue. "We have seen that IAVA's Post-9/11 veterans have opinions all across the spectrum on this issue,” the statement said. “Our members' opinions, just like our members themselves, are very diverse. We hope all their voices are heard and respected as much as those of any professional athlete or politician.” The debate began more than a year ago as a race issue when Colin Kaepernick, then quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, refused to stand during the anthem as a protest over police treatment of minorities. Already charged, the issue exploded this weekend over questions of whether highly paid athletes should use their positions to highlight social issues and whether those actions during the national anthem were construed as anti-patriotic. What had begun as an act by one joined by a handful of players turned into a league-wide protest Sunday after President Donald Trump began a series of tweets calling the protesting players "sons of bitches” who should get off the field, urging coaches to fire them, and calling on Americans to boycott the NFL. “We have great people representing our country, especially our soldiers, our first responders, and they should be treated with respect,” Trump insisted. The issue made its way to the heart of patriotism and respect for U.S. forces fighting the longest wars in the country’s history. Social media exploded with many cheering Pittsburgh Steelers player Alejandro Villanueva, a decorated Army veteran, who was the only member of his team to take the field for the national anthem, standing with his helmet by his side and his hand over his heart. The rest of the team stayed in the tunnel after they could not agree on one unified action in response to Trump’s comments, Coach Mike Tomlin told reporters after the game. “These are divisive times,” he said. “By no means, no way, shape or form was there any disrespect intended for our troops, the people that serve this country,” Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said. “We have nothing but the utmost respect for them, obviously.” Off the field, veterans, servicemembers and their families debated. Many said they would boycott football. “I am a Gold Star mother,” wrote commenter Rose Warnsing on the Stars and Stripes Facebook page. “I refuse to watch or spend any of my money supporting a bunch of prima donna millionaires that dance on my son’s grave. My son, along with thousands upon thousands, have truly sacrificed all so these boys could play a game in the greatest country of them all. I support the right to protest but not their disrespect for the country my son gave his all for.” American Legion Cmdr. Denise Rohan called the players “misguided and ungrateful” for failing to show respect for the national anthem. “There are many ways to protest but the national anthem should be our moment to stand together as one UNITED States of America,” she said. But others responded saying the protests were misunderstood. “All of us that deployed, the ones that came home and the ones that did not -- all fought so that the ones back home could have freedom, liberty, and justice,” wrote Brandy Castilleja, who later said she served in the Army for 17 years as a combat medic, deploying twice to Mosul and once to Baghdad, Iraq, before leaving the 116 service this year. “They are not protesting against troops,” she said. “They are trying to bring to light the severe injustice that is going on in this country." White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday defended Trump’s statements, saying the president was not speaking against anything but rather trying to unify the nation around patriotism and appreciation for the military. “I think that it’s always appropriate for the president of the United States to defend our flag, to defend our national anthem," she said. Some sports aficionados have pointed out that the NFL tradition of players coming onto the field ahead of the national anthem for every game just began in 2009. Before that, except for the Super Bowl and the occasional special event, most teams stayed in the locker room until after the ceremonials were completed. But the issue of connecting the troops to the flag and the anthem harkens to a longer-standing tradition in the military, where servicemembers are required to stop and salute when the flag is raised or lowered each day and when the anthem is played. To many of them, that is entwined in their patriotism. “That flag is more than just a symbol of our nation, it means all that’s right about our country,” said Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesman Joe Davis. “And the disrespect that anyone, not just sports people, show toward the flag, which goes hand in hand with the national anthem, is something other veterans don’t tolerate.” The majority of those who participated in an unofficial poll posted by Stars and Stripes 25 SEP agreed. Of the 528 people who had answered in the first few hours, 63 percent said they saw the anthem protests as disrespectful to servicemembers and veterans while 20 percent saw it as an expression of free speech and 13 percent said it was simply a political act. The rest chose none of the above. Henry Muller, a 27-year Navy veteran, said the whole issue raised for him a question about the hypocrisy of many who have taken umbrage at the protest. “A better poll would be how everyone feels about the people standing in line for beer during the anthem at the games,” he wrote. “Or people sitting on their couches instead of standing for the anthem at home watching the games. “Does that also offend?” he asked. [Source: Stars & Stripes | Dianna Cahn | September 25, 2017 ++] *********************** National Anthem Update 06 ► U.S. Code | Conduct Required When Played Title 36, Subtitle I, Part A section 301 United States Code – National Anthem (a) Designation.— The composition consisting of the words and music known as the Star-Spangled Banner is the national anthem. (b) Conduct During Playing.— During a rendition of the national anthem— · (1) when the flag is displayed— (A) individuals in uniform should give the military salute at the first note of the anthem and maintain that position until the last note; (B) members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute in the manner provided for individuals in uniform; and (C) all other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, and men not in uniform, if applicable, should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart; and · (2) when the flag is not displayed, all present should face toward the music and act in the same manner they would if the flag were displayed. [Source: Title 36, Subtitle 1, Part A section 301 of the US Code | September 2017 ++]

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