This past week was dominated by the the battle between President Trump and the National Football League, its players, its owners, and the TV networks that broadcast the games. President Trump chastised NFL players for not standing up for the National Anthem during his speech in Alabama and said NFL owners should fire these players. His language was colorful & included the “SOB” epithet. He then followed up on Twitter:
- Donald J. Trump?Verified account @realDonaldTrump If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL,or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect….
- Donald J. Trump?Verified account @realDonaldTrump …our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU’RE FIRED. Find something else to do!
And all hell broke loose in the media. The players were livid and the owners supported them for the sake of team unity. The TV networks went wild with condemnations of President Trump for being “divisive” and then extolled the great unity of NFL.
We all found where the real division in the country is. On one side are millionaire TV anchors siding with multi-millionaire football players supported by multi-billionaire NFL owners.To them, their own issues & their disgust about social conditions transcend their country, their Flag and their national anthem.
On the other side of this divide are the majority of the American people to whom loyalty to the country transcends all other issues and to whom respect for the Flag and the National Anthem is paramount. Not only does this side make far far less money but the money they spend on going to NFL games & buying NFL team jerseys is what allows players, TV anchors & owners to make their millions.
How utterly tone-deaf and stupid are these millionaire players, TV guys & owners? Totally! One guest actually said on TV that “football is about the players“. They found out soon that football is actually about the fans. All over the country, NFL fans burned their jerseys, shut off their TVs and expressed their outrage. We think the lesson has been taught and not standing for the Anthem will soon be deemed unacceptable by every NFL team.
The disrespect shown by millionaire NFL players for the National Anthem is a part of a much deeper divide in America – the divide between the elites and the American majority. In every field, you see that the elite have become arrogant and contemptuous about the people they think are beneath them. This is clearly true of sports where player salaries, TV broadcaster salaries and Team valuations have shot up to unprecedented levels. The result is utter arrogance and supercilious attitudes towards American society in these sports and on sports TV. This arrogance is what enables a basketball player to publicly call the President of the United States a “bum”.
The American majority is beginning to strike back. Ratings for NFL games have gone down for months and ESPN, the dominant sports network, has been reduced to laying off TV anchors and cutting back.The stock of Disney, owner of ESPN, is down 15% in a market that is at an all-time high. More and more people are cutting the chord of their cable networks that have become too expensive with multi-millionaire salaries for anchors and too dismissive of the country the majority loves. Of course, never will the fans turn on football altogether, and every year fans will play fantasy, and shut down the country come Superbowl Sunday. However, maybe this will be somewhat of a wake up call for the arrogant players, owners and media of the NFL: do not disrespect the country that has given you everything you have!
You see the same arrogance in founders & executives of social media companies, especially the huge ones based in Silicon Valley. Amassing a net worth of $10 billion or more is now deemed entirely due to their genius instead of the genius & freedom of the American system. They flaunt their contempt of their country publicly and proclaim themselves as globalists who are beyond the norms of a patriotic America. You can see the American regulatory and political climate slowly but clearly turning against them.
You still see the same arrogance in elite sections of the country and in the coastal states against states which depend on the blue-collar industrial worker. The dismissive derision of the “fly over states” term is still predominant in commentaries in elite media and among big donor supported politicians from the coastal states. They still believe that the victory of President Trump was a dumb mistake by stupid people who will finally understand how stupid they were. That is why the non-Fox TV networks have become propaganda machines for their personal outrage about President Trump.
Meanwhile, President Trump continues to show he understands the pulse of the people, at least the people who elected him. Go back to his campaign and you will see the pattern repeating itself – he raises an issue in an emotional & direct way, the media explodes in anger and heaps abuse on him for being uncouth, profane, racist, stupid etc.. The ordinary people actually think he is making a valid point but in too direct a manner. But they recoil far more at the abuse heaped on him by the elite TV media and they stand up in support of him. And even a section of the so-called elite agree with his issue in private.
President Trump did it again this week. He took an issue that a large number of people were uncomfortable about. He adopted it, elevated it and forced the media elites to heap abuse on him. And once again, the people agreed with his issue and rose to show their support of the issue and their disgust of the elite media. Just as Wayne Gretzky would skate to where the hockey puck was about to go, Mr. Trump, once again, took up an issue on behalf of the people and the people followed to where he had gone.
And notice the timing too. President Trump elevated the issue of disrespect to the National Anthem and the Flag by millionaire players a week or so before he launched his tax reform plan. Thanks to his blunt stand about respect for the National Anthem, the majority has once again moved to his side and against the elites. He now gets to launch his tax reform as the plan that gives a tax cut for the middle class and a plan that is opposed by the elites including Democrats and Republican deficit hawks in the Congress.
You decide who is smart and who are dumb enough to fall for it every time!
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