Meanwhile, ESPN and late night "comedy" shows have turned into extensions of the mainstream media arm. When I watch ESPN, I want to see and hear about sports highlights. I don't want a fucking analysis of who did or didn't stand for the National Anthem and why. When I watch late night comedy, I want to laugh and... Forget it. I don't watch much late night comedy anymore except for the occasional Saturday Night where I find myself at home and SNL is in season. Hopefully there will be no more sad eulogies of epic failures of Presidential campaigns of awful candidates, but I digress... Late night comedians used to have funny monologues. They would rip on the President and everyone else. Now it's just constantly ripping on President Trump, and it's rarely funny. And a lot of people are mad because Stephen Colbert "normalized" Sean Spicer at the Emmy Awards by allowing him to make a somewhat funny joke about himself. This is the same Stephen Colbert who jokingly gave a Nazi salute a few weeks ago as a dig at--you guessed it--President Trump.
Look, President Trump has made A LOT of mistakes. He's done some good things, but he's done (mostly said) some stupid and bad things. It's fun to ridicule him sometimes, and South Park got it exactly right last week: he needs to put his phone down and stop with the tweets. But he won't. That's how he rolls. That's how he gets his message out directly to (Bane voice) you, the people. We'll just have to live with it and trust that generals James Mattis (thank you, God, for James Mattis) and John Kelly have enough control to prevent any major unwanted international incidents. But no one was going to protect Trump from the ire of many in the NFL community after he called those kneeling for anthems sons-of-bitches, called for them to be fired, and then went on a twitter rant about the whole thing. Naturally, this just caused more people in the NFL to protest. And on a couch somewhere, Colin Kapernick was smiling, sitting next to his racist girlfriend in his stupid Fidel Castro t-shirt.
I'm fine with NFL players protesting to raise awareness for racial injustice or for any other reason. I think Colin Kapernick is wrong, and wildly inconsistent (see Fidel Castro t-shirt and his girlfriend's tweet that cost him a backup Quarterback job with the Ravens--ask Ray Lewis about that one), but also not a very good Quarterback. Others have done what he did though. Marshawn Lynch sat down and ate a banana during the National Anthem a few weeks ago. He has a job because he's still a pretty good Running Back. Also, the banana thing was kind of funny and at least more consistent than touting Fidel Castro as anything even remotely good. Many of the Cleveland Browns refuse to stand for the anthem, though they also forget to stand for most of the game. And this weekend, it seemed like more players than ever decided to protest, mostly in response to President Trump's comments. If nothing else, they showed that President Trump is decidedly not Fascist, because not only are they all still free men, but they are continuing to make millions of dollars. President Trump has no power over the actions of NFL executives, owners, and players, nor will he ever.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has been quite vocal that his players will stand for the anthem. On Monday Night, he locked arms with his team and they knelt and then stood back up together before the National Anthem, in a show of unity. That, in my estimation, is a good way to protest, to raise awareness, and to show unity. Don't drag the National Anthem or the flag into it. A lot of us in this country have a high level of respect for these things and what they represent. Yes, you're allowed to kneel if you want to, and you may mean no disrespect, but it's the men and women who died fighting for this country who gave us the freedom that we enjoy here, including the freedom to peacefully protest.
If we want unity, we need to strive for unity and stop intentionally dividing people for no real reason. Another story from a week or so ago that didn't get much coverage (though it was covered by The Blaze, interestingly enough) was what happened when some people running a pro-Trump rally decided invited Black Lives Matter protestors to come up to the stage and get their message out. I'll let you hunt for the story if you want to find out what happened, but I'll sum up the theme in one word: Unity. These are the stories that should be covered more, because Americans don't hate each other. On the whole, we are not a racist nation anymore. Yes, terrible things happened here in the past, and there still are some racist idiots hanging around today, but it's no longer the norm, and it's no longer accepted.
Anyway, I'm going to keep watching football--unless it's nice outside or I'm busy doing something else. I don't like it when players kneel for the anthem, but if that's what some of them want to do, I'm not going to act like it's the end of the world, which may not be far off actually... Oh, also, Puerto Rico is part of the United States for those of you who don't know, and it looks like we sent over some planes and ships a few hours ago, so that's good. Let's pay attention to the people in Puerto Rico for now (and still Texas and Florida, of course) and ignore those kneeling for the National Anthem and that fat Asian dwarf threatening everyone with his big missiles because he's compensating for something and wants attention. Mad Dog can handle that situation.
