Commentary: Trump rope-a-dopes the NFL and wins by KO

[WestVirginiaRebel]

The Blaze

This is not an article about who is right and who is wrong. This is an article about who is winning and who is losing.

And as someone who is a) not a fan of Trump (to use mild understatement) and believes that there are real racial issues that need to be addressed in this country, it is nonetheless obvious that Trump has won this dumb NFL national anthem protest battle decisively in the hearts and minds of the middle-of-the-road voters who decide presidential elections.

Watching this bizarre spectacle unfold has been surreal, from a political perspective. The NFL’s image has been tarnished a tad of late, but it is still the undisputed king of sports in America. Its ratings have slipped, but it is still the envy of every other sport and television property in the country, especially since live sports are the only programs that can’t effectively be watched on DVR with commercials getting skipped, and advertisers know it. And even though people have complained about the league, by and large a huge portion of the country still loves their team and their players.

Trump, on the other hand, is widely unpopular. Thanks to a recent bump caused by favorable reaction to his handling of multiple hurricane disasters, Trump is back to hovering around the 40 percent approval range, which is disastrous for a president whose presidency is not yet nine months old. Trump started his presidency with a historically shallow public honeymoon and things almost immediately got worse.

It seems incredible that Trump could pick a fight with the NFL and come out ahead, but that’s exactly what he’s done. And he did it by rope-a-doping the NFL into engaging him on the one territory where the NFL was sure to get massacred: by poking at the festering sore opened by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick last year.

Trump knew that the country — even those who don’t watch football — was simmering with resentment over the relatively small number of NFL players who were unwisely choosing to air their grievances during the national anthem. He understood that even those who might otherwise be sympathetic with the players were disgusted with the way they were choosing to protest, perceiving it as a slight against the entire country, including especially veterans, the active military, and first responders.

Some people (apparently including most of the NFL and its owners) do not understand the concept of the sacred. They do not understand that, to many people, how you say something is as important or more important than what you say. As one example, many people are perfectly fine with criticism of the Catholic church, but if you do it by dipping a crucifix in a vat of urine, even many non-Catholics will react with disgust and rejection. Failing to respect the national anthem and the flag is perceived by many as equivalent sacrilege. For those people, who probably comprise the vast majority of this country, there can be no willingness to consider the players’ message as long as they are using the anthem and the flag as their method of protest.

________

The NFL loses bigly.

[Draggingtree]

18 hours ago, WestVirginiaRebel said:

The Blaze

This is not an article about who is right and who is wrong. This is an article about who is winning and who is losing.

And as someone who is a) not a fan of Trump (to use mild understatement) and believes that there are real racial issues that need to be addressed in this country, it is nonetheless obvious that Trump has won this dumb NFL national anthem protest battle decisively in the hearts and minds of the middle-of-the-road voters who decide presidential elections.

Watching this bizarre spectacle unfold has been surreal, from a political perspective. The NFL’s image has been tarnished a tad of late, but it is still the undisputed king of sports in America. Its ratings have slipped, but it is still the envy of every other sport and television property in the country, especially since live sports are the only programs that can’t effectively be watched on DVR with commercials getting skipped, and advertisers know it. And even though people have complained about the league, by and large a huge portion of the country still loves their team and their players.

Trump, on the other hand, is widely unpopular. Thanks to a recent bump caused by favorable reaction to his handling of multiple hurricane disasters, Trump is back to hovering around the 40 percent approval range, which is disastrous for a president whose presidency is not yet nine months old. Trump started his presidency with a historically shallow public honeymoon and things almost immediately got worse.

It seems incredible that Trump could pick a fight with the NFL and come out ahead, but that’s exactly what he’s done. And he did it by rope-a-doping the NFL into engaging him on the one territory where the NFL was sure to get massacred: by poking at the festering sore opened by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick last year.

Trump knew that the country — even those who don’t watch football — was simmering with resentment over the relatively small number of NFL players who were unwisely choosing to air their grievances during the national anthem. He understood that even those who might otherwise be sympathetic with the players were disgusted with the way they were choosing to protest, perceiving it as a slight against the entire country, including especially veterans, the active military, and first responders.

Some people (apparently including most of the NFL and its owners) do not understand the concept of the sacred. They do not understand that, to many people, how you say something is as important or more important than what you say. As one example, many people are perfectly fine with criticism of the Catholic church, but if you do it by dipping a crucifix in a vat of urine, even many non-Catholics will react with disgust and rejection. Failing to respect the national anthem and the flag is perceived by many as equivalent sacrilege. For those people, who probably comprise the vast majority of this country, there can be no willingness to consider the players’ message as long as they are using the anthem and the flag as their method of protest.

________

The NFL loses bigly.

[Draggingtree]

Yes, Trump is Winning

By Roger Kimball| October 15, 2017

Last week, I went to a dinner event at social club of which I am a member but rarely patronize. You will guess why when I tell you I ran into a friend of longstanding—someone I know well, but hadn’t seen in a couple of years—and she greeted me with the exclamation, “Here’s a Trumpster!” I could see that that was partly for the benefit of the gents she was talking to, a sort of tribal-marking announcement (“He’s one of those, boys”) but I couldn’t immediately tell whether the glint in her eye was friendly or otherwise. She soon cleared up that ambiguity. I said something about “our president.” “He’s not my president,” she snapped, adding that Donald Trump was deeply unpopular and would probably be driven from office soon.

“Actually,” I offered, “his approval ratings are on the rise.”

“So were Mussolini’s,” came the icy rejoinder.

Got it. At least I knew where we stood.

One is encouraged to leave politics at the front door of this particular club (unlike London’s “Other Club” where Rule 12 stipulates that “Nothing in the rules or intercourse of the Club shall interfere with the rancour or asperity of party politics”).      https://amgreatness.com/2017/10/15/yes-trump-is-winning/