The headline on this editorial might just as well be, “a plague on both your houses.”
The NFL season began uneventfully. Colin Kaepernick was not playing for any team; he could not kneel down as the national anthem was played. The whole controversy was dying out. Yes, there were a few public protests that no NFLteam had actually signed Kaepernick, but his play on the field had deteriorated, even if this provided a convenient excuse for owners to ignore him. Bottom line: the controversy was over.
President Trump needlessly decided to flay a dead horse. His gratuitous, inflammatory — and uncouth, distinctly unpresidential —words only stirred flames of division. He reignited furious emotions on all sides, deepening polarization for no reason. Not to mention, it is not the role of the president (or of any elected official) to tell a private enterprise, such as a football team, whom to hire and whom to fire.
The spectacle of football players kneeling down en masse during the playing of the national anthem matched the President’s divisive fit of pique. Provocation begat provocation, as if this were a spat in a sand box. Not to mention, disrespect for the symbols of this country, not out of concern for injustice, but merely out of solidarity for the misguided Kaepernick, is a desiccated moral position. If the explosive growth in the number of NFL players who kneeled down were acting in solidarity with Kaepernick’s cause, they would have acted before Trump spoke up. They did not.
As previously argued on this page, Kaepernick’s kneeling had no redeeming merit because it stimulated no one — including himself — to take any concrete steps to address any point of injustice in this country. Kaepernick’s kneeling met the classic definition of grandstanding. Neither he nor any of his fellow NFL multi-millionaires committed their considerable resources and prestige toward addressing any injustice or inequality as a follow up to Kaepernick’s kneeling.
Kaepernick perceives intentional injustice against blacks by police. Does he perceive heroism by police who give their lives protecting the innocent, utterly without concern for race or ethnicity, such as occurred during the mass shooting in Las Vegas last Sunday night? We have heard of no such perception or expression of gratitude from Kaepernick or his fellow kneelers.
Trump revived the dead. Trump needlessly exacerbated divisions in America. The NFL players thoughtlessly doubled down, exacerbating divisions by themselves.
This is not the way of presidential leadership, of sportsmanship or of civil society.
It might be objected that civil society is based on free speech, and that the NFL players were only exercising their First Amendment rights. Well, the exact same thing can be said of the president. Free speech is not necessarily wise speech. Both Kaepernick’s and Trump’s free speech were devoid of wisdom. Civil society depends on good sense as well as on rights.
Both the president and the players may have been within their rights, but not in a way that honored their respective and expected roles of leadership. The sins here abound all around.
Copyright © 2017 by the Intermountain Jewish News
