Personally, I still think Trump was wrong to interject himself into the debate: it’s below the station of POTUS. Many have theories on why he did this, from Trump being Trump, to attempting to distract from Russia Russia Russia, to wanting people to talk about this for various reasons, and so forth. But, did Trump lose the day? The Daily Caller’s Scott Greer has an interesting take
Trump Wins When The NFL Takes A Knee
…
In reality, Trump has taken the side of the flag and provoked multi-millionaire athletes into opposing patriotism. When several players for the New England Patriots took a knee during the anthem on Sunday, their own fans booed them. So do fans of the Buffalo Bills and the Washington Redskins when members of those respective teams knelt.
There are hardly two more liberal, anti-Trump areas in America than the Boston and D.C. metropolitan areas. Yet even football fans who live there can’t stand protests against the anthem.
Rather than earning sympathy for free speech, more players joining in the protest is more likely to alienate NFL fans from the game. Polling last year showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans thought that politics should be kept off the field. The number one reason for declining NFL ratings was due to national anthem protests, according to ESPN, of all places.
Hardcore Patriots fans booing their own team is not a good sign that the NFL is going to come out on top in its war with the president.
Trump’s involvement in the debate over national anthem protests shows him once again stepping into his kind of cultural war. No longer tied to religious or moral concerns, Trump’s forays into the culture war typically revolve around questions of national identity and pit middle Americans against various elites.
Think on that last sentence. Regular America vs the Elitists. Surveys show that the viewership of the NFL leans very much Republican, and these are people with high turnout for elections, meaning that they are people who pay attention to politics. That does not bode well when pampered, elitist, multimillionaires protest on the field during the National Anthem, showing how much they hate America, and how much they hate the patriotic citizens who attend the games, watch them on TV, and buy the merchandise.
What will the NFL owners do when they start losing over a billion dollars because those same fans are not going to games, not paying for parking, not buying merchandise, and not watching on TV, which would cause advertising rates to plummet?
If the NFL players really want to Do Something, instead of being disrespectful to their fans they should get out in the communities and put their money and time where their mouths are. Where were all the Ravens players when there were 6 shootings, resulting in 4 deaths and 2 shot, in Baltimore Saturday night? Guess which race was involved in all? Baltimore is 65% Black, why are the Ravens not getting involved in helping those people out?
Of course, perhaps Trump is winning the fight, but, it’s all of us who lose, because we tune the NFL out. We lose the fun of watching a game. It will be interesting to see what happens with the ratings for this past Sunday, and future Sundays if this continues.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
I like watching football but will not be for the foreseeable future. At least for the next 8 weeks there is NASCAR whose team owners put out the word that ANY member of their teams that protest the National Anthem will be fired.
Some fans got the message…
http://pit.247sports.com/Bolt/Alejandro-Villanueva-Pittsburgh-Steelers-jersey-sales-skyrocket–107932265
Along with some other fans…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/09/24/kneelers-booed-patriots-fans-rain-down-boos-upon-20-hate-filled-players-video/
If Trump is “winning,” the question has to be asked “what is the fight (or the war) about?” What exactly is the disagreement here?
This to me appears to be a case where both “sides” of the argument have legitimate points that are right and wrong.
Certainly the players have the right to protest as no one can stop them. Whether there are consequences to those protests in the form of fines,firing, releases, etc is a matter for the league and team management. One can argue that the government, in the form of Trump, should not have entered the fray and should have simply stayed out of it. He could have simply said “I think it is inappropriate,” but he went far beyond that into the same type of rhetoric that we saw from Obama when it came to these types of issues.
Trump should have said “I understand the concerns of the players and invite them to the White House to meet with me. We can talk about plans and ways of resolving issues and moving forward.”
Instead, Trump’s tweets and actions were as divisive as the players.
It is naive to think that the players’ concerns are without some validity. As much as I support the police, I also see and hate the idea of laws such as those characterized as “Law Enforcement Bill of Rights” where the police are given more rights in an investigation than the average citizen. Either the rules and laws apply to us all, or they are worthless.
The players are wrong in their protest and Trump was wrong in his response.
This is the kind of discourse I encourage. Both sides have a legitimate concern. No one side is right. No one side is wrong. Politics is all about that Ideal.
Of the protest about police was not drawn on racial lines then I would support discourse to change the actions of the authorities. But with the racial aspect of us just another racial power grab. So that makes the issue much less relevant. Stats do not support the fact that blacks are harmed to any great extent by the police. In fact whites have more concern. What we do have is an excess in black crime and that should be addressed. I suggest that you go to the local ER and watch, you will find that there is a war going on that is not reported. This is almost all black. The whole issue of the BLM was founded on lies. The football players look like a group of fools protesting nothing.
So that makes the issue much less relevant.
How so?
The fact of the matter is that according to government stats, blacks are far more likely to be pulled over for driving infractions than whites. Studies have shown that blacks are more likely to be pulled over for speeding through the same intersection than whites or Hispanics.
Government stats show that men are more likely to be cited than women. Men are more likely to have their property searched at a stop than women. Does that take the racial component out it for you?
There are all sorts of variables in this and saying that because blacks are protesting the way blacks are treated by law enforcement somehow invalidates what they are saying is ridiculous.
There are always going to be people like Shapton and Jackson who think blacks can do no wrong and whites can do no right. There are always going to be people like you who think that whites can do no wrong and blacks can do no right.
The truth is somewhere in the middle and is independent of color. People with bad character will do bad things. Period.
If there is a bias in policing, it serves us all to either work to eliminate it or demonstrate it doesn’t exist.
The players are wrong for the timing of their protests in that the National Anthem should be a unifying idea. Trump is wrong in that his tweets further widened the divide.
If blacks don’t want to be pulled over then they should obey the law. By supporting the BLM you are empowering another political group with a selective agenda. I suggest reading White Guilt, it will help to put issues like this in perstectve. I agree we have institutional racism in the US but it is aimed at whites.
If blacks don’t want to be pulled over then they should obey the law.
One would assume that to be the case of all races, david. If you don’t want to be pulled over, obey the law.
However, your simplistic thinking does not take into account the idea that studies that have sent different races speeding through an intersection at a rate equal to the population rate have blacks being pulled over by a ratio of almost 2:1.
Those figures are supported by the government as well.
You make another false statement in that you seem to think that I am support BLM.
I am not.
I am, however, supporting the idea that there needs to be conversations and resolutions on whether we as Americans are getting the same justice from the government.
I feel sorry for you in that you appear to think that is a bad idea.
Guitar,
So in your simplistic work you can not see that a great percent of cops are black or other races and you seem to think that everyone has it in for the poor black man. If you are going to write studies learn to read themfirst. The first thing in a study is finding it why it was written. The majority of face related studies have a political agenda. Then there is the fact that blacks representing a small fraction of our population are over represented in crime.
Although the study you referred to is not cited, a cursory google search reveals two studies that are not quite as black and white as you assume.
Found this quote interesting and revealing.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/02/portland_police_traffic_stops.html
Driving While Black debunked in NJ:
The New Jersey Turnpike? The long-believed claim of “racism†on that highway has been investigated — and debunked. Twice.
Numerous complaints of DWB — Driving While Black — were filed by blacks driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. So the state entered into a consent decree, agreed to federal monitoring, and put their officers through, among other things, “sensitivity training.†New Jersey commissioned a study, checking motorists’ speed with laser guns and photographing drivers of vehicles going 15 mph or more over the speed limit.
The result? It turned out that more speeders were black than white, which explained why cops pulled over black motorists so often. The U.S. Justice Department, which requested the study, did not want the results released to the public. Instead, they accused the researchers of using a “flawed methodology.†Why shelve a report that disproves racism? Isn’t it good news that Jersey troopers do not pull blacks over willy-nilly? Would this not improve race relations in New Jersey? No — the facts did not fit the script.
The next year, state police “stop data†showed that, on the southern part of the turnpike, 30 percent of the drivers pulled over were minority — almost twice the 16 percent rate of minority stops elsewhere on the turnpike. So, amid new allegations that cops were targeting minorities, and to correct the “flawed methodology†of the previous researchers, New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey commissioned yet another study. The result? Again, it turned out a disproportionately higher percentage of drivers on that stretch of highway were black, and that blacks were more likely than non-blacks to drive 80 miles per hour or faster. Again, critics called the study’s methodology “flawed.â€
http://www.larryelder.com/column/eric-holder-a-more-dangerous-race-card-hustler-than-al-sharpton/
david,
Apparently you cannot read or understand concepts that are outside your beliefs.
On average, according to the US Government, black cops make up 13 percent of the police workforce which means that by going strictly by the numbers, they are under-represented as the percentage of blacks in the country is 13.8%. While the discrepancy is not great, the figures (which have no agenda) show that your statement “great percent of cops are black or other races” is factually wrong. Taken as a whole, minority officers comprise 27% of the workforce. Once again, that is hardly a “great percent” by any stretch of the imagination.
Then there is the fact that blacks representing a small fraction of our population are over represented in crime.
Are they? Or are other races underrepresented?
I know that you like to throw out wild, unsubstantiated claims, but the questions I ask are simple:
1) Why are blacks stopped twice as often as whites for traffic infractions and that number carries through to the same infraction at the same location?
2) Why are blacks searched more than three times the rate of a white person?
If there are legitimate reasons for these problems, let’s get the answers out there. Let’s diffuse the arguments that cops are racists. Until that is done. and the numbers show a disproportional stopping and searching of blacks, the claim that people like you have that there is nothing to see here, move along is ridiculous.
If there is no heat the to smoke, then what exactly are you and people like you afraid of?
JGlanton,
From the Elder article:
And therein lies the flaw in the studies.
Furthermore, both studies mis-identified whites as Hispanics and vice versa.
In the 1990s, it was discovered that there were memos from the Highway Patrol encouraging the stopping of blacks while driving. New Jersey, to their credit, made massive efforts to reduce that bias in law enforcement. Whether that bias was eliminated by 2002 is anyone’s guess as the Highway Patrol was prevented by law at the time from recording the race of the people they stopped.
I hope the studies were true, but to be honest, there are a lot of holes to be found there.
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime
DP,
Your article hits some decent notes but it also points out a problem with what is being discussed. Even if one accepts the idea that blacks commit more crimes (and there are problems with that) does that excuse cops for stopping blacks at a disproportional rate? If a crime goes out over the airwaves, should cops immediately start looking for a black guy? Or do people have the right to be presumed innocent throughout the judicial process?
The article makes the point that poverty, not race, is a prime factor in crimes.
I have a tendency to agree with that belief and understanding. So now the question is “what do we do to help people get out of poverty?” (Hand up, not hand outs.) How do we convince people that hard work will get them out of poverty. Even the government statistics say that poverty need note last more than a generation. In that good decisions will help people get out of poverty, how do we as a society train or lead people to make those good decisions?
Oddly enough, that is some of the things that the players are protesting and talking about.
In 2016, 69.6 percent of all persons arrested were White, 26.9 percent were Black, and the remaining 3.6 percent were of other races. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/persons-arrested
Disproportional to what exactly? Do you have any hard numbers or is that just anecdotal evidence?
If the description of the suspect fits, yes, indeed.
Yes, it’s guaranteed under the Constitution.
Guitar,
You don’t seem to understand much. Yet you are willing to show your ignorance. Blacks may be under represented as a national number, likely as the test are not upset for affirmative action. But in my area we have a black mayor, black council and black police force and blacks are stopped and arrested more than whites. Go figure. You have prejudiced to over come to see that our black population cannot keep up and the measures of the last 60 years are not working. Read The Bell Curve, will help to understand.
Clearly I understand more than you do david.
But in my area we have a black mayor, black council and black police force and blacks are stopped and arrested more than whites.
Proof please. If you think I am going to take your word for it, you’re nuts.
I think others have already refuted you. I might ask why you are always so hostile? Do you think that is a discussion? But as you know I have little use for you so by.
Sorry david, but when you start with comments like “you don’t understand much,” you lose the moral authority to say anyone is being “hostile.”
I think others have already refuted you.
Really? Then you haven’t read what is said.
The funny thing is that you talked about how studies and how one has to look at the source of the study but yet when a study agrees with you, you fall into lockstep with it. Talk about being a hypocrite.
Finally, no one here refuted your claim that you “…. have a black mayor, black council and black police force and blacks are stopped and arrested more than whites.” Furthermore, arrests are not convictions, which shouldn’t escape someone like you.
The fact of the matter is that I look at the numbers and try to see what they say. You look at the numbers as some sort of belief that you as an old white man are superior to anyone..
Booing or not watching the NFL is one way to express displeasure. Not buying the sponsors products and letting them know why you’re not buying is much more effective. Cuts off the money to pay the multimillionaire crybabies.
This sort of equal-siderism pablum serves no one. It like equating BLM with the neo-Nazis (which tRump and TEACH did).
The players, many of them Black, have a platform to address what they see as a significant wrong – the oppression of powerless Blacks by the police – and the overall oppression of minorities in the US. They were not “spitting” on America, the flag, the anthem, least of all veterans. They are well within their rights to express their political opinions just as their employers can curtail or punish their behaviors. Offended white fans can and likely will spend their leisure dollars elsewhere.
But tRump was wrong to use the power of the state in an attempt to keep citizens from legally expressing their concerns. That is unAmerican. He’s promoting a boycott of the NFL and telling the owners to fire those “son of a bitches” because his base doesn’t like the message. tRump understands media manipulation but he does not understand the core of American ideals or values, and he makes no apologies for it. He’s a strongman commanding an army of 35% of American adults.
tRump wins because he can once again point to a minority and claim THEY are unAmerican and unpatriotic. In other words, THEY should produce THEIR birth certificates to prove they are real Americans.
tRump is a carnival barker and a good one. He knows how to stroke and stoke his tribe. Little Marco, Little Rocketman, Crooked Hillary, Lyin’ Ted, Losers (everyone), Fake News, Low IQ Mika, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, Over-rated (everyone), “Prisoner” John McCain… He’s a good carnival barker but a bad, bad President.
So you agree with the blacks who are offended by arrangements of cotton.
So little jeffvckery proves he’s a Fan of the Klan with a Tan aka BLM.
It’s like equating BLM with the Ku Klux Klan. Only an idiot could do that.
Klan with a Tan, little dipshit.
An idiot, but just barely…
Why yes, yes you are for supporting the BLM terrorists aka Klan with a Tan, little dipshit.
This sort of equal-siderism pablum serves no one.
You mean it doesn’t serve you.
So let’s see… Blacks shouldn’t protest because someone sacrificed and died, including many Blacks, to secure their right to protest. Their protests are unpatriotic and disrespectful to veterans. Got it.
You obviously don’t have it.
The timing of the protests is the issue.
The national anthem is something that should unify us and instead, the players are using their protests during the anthem to sow division.
Your so called defense of the players is weak and ignores what is being said.
Got it?
So when is the right time to protest in hopes of securing your civil rights?
When were the players denied their civil rights?
Do you really think the football players were protesting to secure their own personal rights?
They can protest anything they drsire, as stupid as it may be. But not when I want to entertained. You see they have freedom of speech and I have freedom to fire them.
Besides, there is no institutional racism in the US against blacks, other groups like whites, but not blacks. At some point they have to start living in our society and stop being a pain in the backside.
But not when I want to entertained. You see they have freedom of speech and I have freedom to fire them.
Wow. I didn’t know that you were an NFL owner.
Please stop spouting ignorant nonsense.
You can’t fire anyone on an NFL team.
Very stupid reply. Grow up if you are going to comment.
gdave,
Did you mistakenly think it was I that criticized you, LOL?
Very stupid reply. Grow up if you are going to comment.
What makes ist stupid in your eyes, david?
The fact that it is true?
Please try to understand that many minority Americans feel as second class citizens. We understand to be defensive about the nation we white Americans feel we have built. We interpret the criticism as personal. Perhaps tRump stumbled into raising awareness.
Does this distract him from our serious and exigent responsibilities toward our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico?
In addition, as long as he yelling at Black people perhaps he hasn’t time to trigger a thermonuclear war.
from Marine Michael Weber:
Dale Earnhardt Jr., this morning:
The Distractor in Chief wants you to concentrate on “those people”, those “Black son-of-a-bitches” instead of his failures re North Korea, healthcare and Puerto Rico (and these are just his recent failures).
He attacks Black folks because his base hates Black folks.
#DumptRump
Now how is health care his fault though I am glad to see you think Obama care is failing? He is doing well in the storm ravaged areas. And he has done more in Korea than the last 3 presidents. You don’t seem to understand much and you are not current on news.
dave,
Yes, he’s done a bang up job in Puerto Rico.
What kind of leader is tRump if he can’t get the majority House and Senate to throw millions off the ACA as promised?
You are right – he HAS done more in North Korea – all bad. He’s got the North Koreans to declare that a nuclear attack on the US is inevitable. Under tRump’s provocation, they have launched missiles over Japan. Heckuva job, tRumpy, heckuva job.
— Antonin Scalia
Why is tRump, in the most powerful position on Earth, trying to suppress the speech of some Americans?
Talk about income inequality. In the NFL you have players risking their lives. Literally, working every bit as hard as the guy beside them for 650k per year. The guy beside him is making 20-25 MILLION per year.
Now is that not income inequality? These are black men too. The blacks are persecuted never more blatantly then they are in sports. Sure they are rewarded for their excellence and yet the communists would have you believe that it is okay for this to happen right now because whats more important to them. Income inequality or protesting the nations desire to be proud of the flag?
In hollywood the income inequality is even worse. They are paid based upon their skin color as well as their gender. Top male stars are paid quadruple what a top female star is paid. Black actors make minimum wage compared to white actors unless your name is Denzel Washington. As per SONY records.
Income inequality. It seems that in both the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, Hollywood and other places around the USA people are paid for their ability or their ability of their importance to the organization.
A quaterback is paid handsomely. The face of a franchise. Much like a CEO is paid handsomely for his ability to guide a corporation or business to a winning record. If you fail, your most likely replaced. Never more so then in sports. See the graveyard of quarterbacks now selling insurance.
Income inequality was never more prevalent then in major league sports and yet these same black men protesting black lives matter dont seem too concerned with the fact that their brothers in arms working every bit as hard as they are, are simply being paid like slaves picking cotton in the fields.
ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN the champion of the Black lives matter cause seem to turn a blind eye to an arena full of black athletes picking cotton for their owners. Why? Because these same networks know that they are making billions off selling these products.
Wow. The American athlete is a total moron it seems. Working for slave pay while the guy besides them is paid like a king. Black or white. Its the NFL and the owners paying for their cotton to be picked while huge liberal run media companies cheer them on.
Im not sure America honestly will make it 10 years before the country is in mass chaos.
tRump and his ilk want you to believe this is the case. It’s not, and any thinking person knows it’s not the case.
Professional athletics is entertainment, a place where the market largely dictates one’s value. Is it any surprise that Blacks and Hispanics (e.g., in baseball) compete well in sports and music? Blacks have a hard breaking into the upper middle class in common society but excel where there’s a freer market – where customers decide directly where to spend their hard-earned American dollar.
Even as dumb as most white conservatives consider American Black men to be, Black men accept the known risks of playing a few years in the NFL, with a minimum wage of over $600,000 a year with the opportunity to make ten times that or more with continued success.
The bigger question is how to get more money into the hands of America’s working class families, both whites and Blacks to allow them to save for the future, live a healthy life and send their kids to school? What do the working classes want? Good jobs to enable them to support their families.
So your saying its okay to have income inequality based upon ones ability to perform but when it comes to the marketplace the same income inequality is an egregious offense based upon ones ability to perform or excel and an active attempt to keep the working class as small as possible.
I wonder if you see the hypocrisy in your position?
Certainly, the near election of the charlatan tRump has destabilized America and her people, but we will survive. It was more chaotic in the late 60s.
We should all recognize that civilization survives under a thin veneer. As stated many times, the vile tRump is a symptom not the cause of our problems.
Well not according to your posts. I mean If I am to judge America based upon your posts then America is for sure doomed and on the decline into chaos with Trump as the president.
Now you say you will survive? So which is it? You’ll survive or America is doomed. Your writings confuse me.
Stupidity cannot be understood nor reasoned with so don’t even try.
Rotter,
Trump is doing great. But he is being attacked by his own party and all the Washington establishment as they want business as usual with their kick backs and other revenue sources. Both Hillary and Obama are attacking him as well against the gentleman agreement that has been in place since our founding. Then you have 50% of the US can not stand the other 50%. This is very similar to what we had in 1860, which had very little to do with freeing slaves. I don’t think that we can continue along this line. The one thing that will tell is how the economy does. If the economy hangs in, then people will be complacent and not fight. On the other hand if the economy tanks, which is a good bet with the Obama years and debts, then people will feel stressed and go to war.
Yes I think one of my first posts I made here was a statement to the fact that there is a rather large miniority of EU citizens that would love to have a Trump like version of their own leader. Many polls we have seen across the EU puts the figures in the mid 40 percent range. In other words about 45 percent of the EU is longing for leadership that puts their own interests and their own country first. However the Elitism of the EU has destroyed the ability of the EU to accurately represent every nation because not only are our nations different with much differing problems, but culturally we are different as well.
The EU could see in themselves the United States of America. Each country a state. Part of the whole. But in the end what we have is a central panel dictating to each nation many things that we never dreamed would be forced upon us. How many immigrants we will take in. How much we owe in taxes to this secretive central government which mandates to each soverign nation dictates that in many times sit well with some nation states but anger others.
Much like in the USA I think where you have red states and blue states. No one is ever happy. But in the EU we have no push back. There is no backbone to say no we are going to make sanctuary cities or no we are going to stop taking in insane amounts of middle eastern muslims.
So I fear for the planet. It is the USA that brings stability to the world. The rest of the world is a tinderbox waiting to explode. If the USA falls into Anarchy. Trust me the rest of the world will be right behind her. This I think is the one thing that the billion bloggers around the world fail to comprehend. Just how strong a voice they have in the ultimate fate of the world.
I know what you are referring to in the EU. I have been traveling in Europe and found many of the people that we met to have zero backbone. They love government control yet are miserable and can not get ahead and enjoy independence. I was really struck by Germany. We had an American driver that gave us in side knowledge and I was blown away at the government incompetence. We were there at the terrorist attack in Berlin. They could not arrest the guy before he killed due to government incompetence and the PC culture. In particular I was actually ashamed for the Germans as they go around with crushing guilt over WWII. They thus bend over for any issue of race and apparent discrimination and that to the peril of their citizens.
I’m sorry you’re confused. But it’s your own fault. You employ a rhetorical device whereby anyone whose ideas you oppose are taken to a absurd level. tRump being the worst president ever becomes “America cannot survive!”. You should practice your own “teachings” and try to understand and discuss more, and criticize less.
Correction, Obama was the worst. Trump is spending overtime reversing Obama. DP makes more sense than you and gc.
dave,
To you and your ilk, President Obama was the blackest, therefore the worst. At least tRump has yet ruin President Obama’s recovering economy.
I did not bring up his race, but you are bigoted in that respect as you will not judge him straight up against whites. Thus you are the one with real prejudice.
Jeff,
As Obama economy is so great, would you mind listing the elements of his agenda that resulted in such a great economy.
You rightly suggest that Presidents have little they can do for the economy other than cajole congress to do the right thing. Economists agree that the ARRA helped drive down unemployment. The Fed’s cutting the short term interest to zero helped. On the downside Obama naively underestimated the perfidy of congressional Repubs regarding the harmful “sequester” which cost citizens 1.2 million jobs. Obama pushed and signed payroll tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits.
tRump is selling hats that say Make America Great Again. tRump advocates cutting income taxes of the wealthy which will benefit the weatlhy, not help the economy and add to the debt. But it’s what the GOP does.