He’s fired

The Chief Bully made it his business yesterday, at yet another campaign rally, to attack football players for demonstrating against racism.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he’s fired,’ ” Mr. Trump said during an appearance at a political rally in Alabama.

The Times doesn’t say it, but Trump repeated “he’s fired” with heavy emphasis, his face contorted with rage.

As to the substance, this nonsense about “when somebody disrespects our flag”…Here’s a wild idea: the important thing isn’t actually the flag, it’s the substance. The flag is only a symbol. To Trump it’s apparently a symbol of what he calls Our Nayshun – but what is our nation? One thing it is is a state that at its very beginning laid out some inspiring ideals that it repudiated at the same time: on the one hand equality and liberty, on the other hand 3/5ths of a person and slavery. It’s a state that started life clinging to the anachronistic horror of chattel slavery, and has been tainted by racism ever since.

It’s not actually disrespecting the flag to refuse to pay ceremonial homage to it when the state it symbolizes hasn’t yet even come close to repairing the damage done by its long shameful history of the worst kind of racism.

Trump is both white and a noisy shameless racist. It’s not his job to tell black people they can’t protest the flag. It’s certainly not his job to call them “son of a bitch” and snarl at them from a public stage.

Editing to add a tweet that sums it all up.

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