A pretty remarkable statement
Well, you see, it’s not about free speech, at least not according to Trump.
The White House press secretary today said the president doesn't consider the protected free speech of NFL players against police brutality to be free speech. Which is a totally accurate reflection of how he sees it and a pretty remarkable statement.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 5, 2018
Yep, she said that.
“The president doesn’t think that this is an issue simply of free speech,” Sanders responded when reporters questioned why the White House supported the Supreme Court’s decision to protect the rights of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple but not those of NFL players kneeling during the anthem.
“He thinks it’s about respecting the men and women of our military, it’s respecting our national anthem, and it’s about standing out of pride for that,” Sanders continued.
Involuntarily. On command. No dissent or refusal permitted.
Besides which, why is standing for a song at a football game in particular about respecting the men and women of our military and respecting our national anthem? Why is that and that alone a situation in which one is commanded by the president of the US to show highly symbolic “respect” for the military and the song being sung? Not lacrosse games, not picnics, not Halloween, not shopping, not sailing, not shoveling snow off the roof – just football games. What’s the connection? Is it the violence? Is that it? Is Trump thinking football is actually a branch of the military, because of all the players who end up disabled from playing it?
I think Trump noticed that a bunch of non-white people were criticizing people with badges, uniforms, and guns. Trump loves badges, uniforms, and guns, and he isn’t too fond of non-white people.
The Colorado bakers were white people who were religious and speaking out against gay people. Trump isn’t any too fond of gay people, but religious white people put him in the White House.
It’s a no brainer. And since Trump has no brain….
One ex-player was criticized by rightwingers because he asked, if not standing still for the anthem at the game is unpatriotic, why are the concession stands, bathrooms, and ticket-taking points not closed during the anthem.
That is simple: Football has the highest viewer numbers, and being seen on TV is all that counts.
Service members are consistently – possibly without exception – invoked by announcers before and in connection with the national anthem for football games, for at least a number of years now. It does seem like an artificial association to me – armed service members and the anthem, and the pair of them with football, and standing for the anthem. But they are artificial associations that are right there explicitly made before every game, and that will sink into that very simple brain.
It helps, I’m sure, that protesting police brutality when Trump praises it makes someone an enemy, and he’s not interested in engaging that when he can make it out as about patriotism of the shallowest variety – again, the only sort he’s going to grasp.
Sarah Sanders has one of the toughest gigs in America. No make that the World.
No matter how illogical a position taken by Trump, her job is to present it as the very essence of sweet reason. She does not have much success with those she might call ‘the elites’. But she does with those in Trump’s constituency, and they do the rest.
@Omar – it may be tough, but no-one’s forcing her to do it. She’s not a slave. She could quit any time she wants, and get an honourable job instead.
What she does is akin to twisting live cats into balloon animal shapes. On one level, sure, you can admire the fact that it’s technically very tricky, and she displays a fair amount of skill in managing to do the job at all. But that admiration ought to be totally dominated by the sickening feeling of utter horror over the fundamental nature of the acts she’s performing. It’s vile and awful and cruel and she just needs to stop.
“But that admiration ought to be totally dominated by the sickening feeling of utter horror over the fundamental nature of the acts she’s performing. It’s vile and awful and cruel and she just needs to stop.”
It would be harder for Trump to do what he does without people like Sanders doing what she does for him. One lone, lying, evil, stupid person, even a rich one, has limited ability to do much harm (though the “rich” part lets them do more harm, and get away with it, than someone who is poor). A lying, evil, stupid person with an eager team of accomplices and abettors can do a lot more damage. Complicity with lies, evil, and stupidity means you are responsible for those lies, that evil and that stupidity too. “Just following orders” was supposed to have ceased being a valid defence around 70 years ago…
And all the while in a typical press conference her body language and facial expressions are those of a primary school teacher confronting a bunch of naughty boys.