This has been the Republican Party for the past few decades. They have become submissive and fearful of The Left. They are like the bullied kid in school who finds it easier to just hand over his lunch money every day and comb the spitballs out of his hair at night. In fact, he goes out of his way to please the bullies, hoping that they will eventually like him. The kid is now fully cucked and has no self-respect. Just look at Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. They are nothing more than grown up bullied kids who are weak and timid, forever trying to get into the good graces of Democrats who despise them and hold them in contempt. There is no fight in them anymore. They just want to go along to get along.
If not for Donald Trump, I think a president Hillary would truly be the end of conservatism. You saw it among almost every Republican politician just before the election. They were all reconciled to the fact that Trump would lose and so they were positioning themselves to pay tribute to her and help her take America down a bad road.
Apparently you mis-read my post, or I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t saying Trump should NOT have reacted. I just think he responded in a way that plays the game on the opponent’s field. He should have ridiculed them. Or he should have challenged them, in some way defining the impetus of the protests in a light that is unfavorable to the players.
I mentioned already how he could have re-tweeted a picture and captioned it in a way that would have made them stop, nearly immediately (”players bowing their heads and kneeling in reverence”). He could have also gone back to the guy who started it, who apparently has a love-affair with communist dictators: “Why are all of these players going all in with a communist sympathizer?”. Or kick the legs out of the BLM false-charge that police and/or republicans are racists. Or that police are targeting blacks. They’re all demonstrably false.
In other words, ask: “What are these spoiled millionaires protesting”?, then pivot back to his core appeal and message: “While these cry-babies protest and dishonor our nation, millions upon millions of hard working Americans, of all races, genders, and backgrounds, are shelling out their precious & hard-earned money, that enable these guys to play a game for a living. And for what? Lie, upon lie, upon lie. They’re dividing, not uniting our country.”
Trump reacted exactly as they expected him to react, and they’re now playing their next card and painting him and all Republicans as racists - specifically because the way he reacted enabled them to.