Virtue signaling

Written by

Ophelia Benson

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And in between threatening new wars and teasing us with military surprises and attacking senators on Twitter, Trump and his people manage to find time to continue their ridiculous fight with football players who have the temerity to protest racism.

Vice President Mike Pence left a football game between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday after some players knelt during the National Anthem, saying he did not want to “dignify” the event.

“I left today’s Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem,” Pence wrote on Twitter.

Except that it doesn’t “disrespect our soldiers”; that’s why they kneel instead of sitting: it’s specifically to combine respect for our soldiers (many of whom, I might add, are black) with protesting police violence against black people. An administration with any decency and with any sense of duty to all the people would take that on board instead of constantly picking fights over it. Football players really are not doing anything wrong by refusing to follow a particular custom. It’s not as if they’re shitting in church. It’s just football. It’s just a song. Singing a patriotic song before a football game is not some kind of legal obligation. It’s not even a very old custom. It’s just some thing that somebody decided to do not that long ago; it’s not at all clear why players shouldn’t be free to reject or adapt the custom. People in other countries think we’re deeply weird for putting on a dumb patriotic display before getting down to smashing heads together. Presidents and their colleagues should have more important things to do than to make a fuss about it.

Donald Trump Jr., the President’s eldest son, tweeted his support for Pence’s decision.

Ahhhhhh that’s such a disgusting – and racist – thing to say. “Pride in our country” forsooth – that from the family that has been selling the country to Putin for years. God they are scum.

Bill Kristol is not impressed either. Yet again, weird to be in agreement with Bill Kristol.

Comments

4 responses to “Virtue signaling”

  1. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    What a uniter, not a divider. The best uniter. It’s incredible.

  2. Freemage Avatar
    Freemage

    There’s some video going around that talks about the history of the anthem, in all the full-blown patriotic wankery that you’d expect, and it’s voiced by a histrionic Jack Webb. I’ve seen it before–it gets passed around every time there’s an anthem/flag controversy.

    And it’s pitch-perfect, because it’s so horribly, horribly wrong. It says Key was with the American POWs at the time (actually on his own ship, observing the battle after having successfully argued for the release of a single friend); has the British boasting about how they’re going to take the fort by morning (when in fact he’d simply learned about the planned attack while he was negotiating with them and then was told he could wait it out on his ship, because Brits fancy themselves gentlemen, even in war), and, oh, yes, one other small detail–it claims the anthem was written during the Revolutionary War.

  3. Acolyte of Sagan Avatar
    Acolyte of Sagan

    Of course, because von Trumpf cannot but publically undermine or contradict his cabinet, he has tweeted that he told Pence to walk if players knelt for the anthem.

    https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/917091286607433728

    Off on a tangent for a moment, it occured to me earlier that we might be wrong in criticising Trump for courting the religious whilst obviously having no religious convictions of his own. Looked at logically, Trump has zero religious belief but Pence is ultra-religious, so taking the average of their levels of belief leads to the conclusion that the country is being run by two religious moderates.

  4. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    Trump has zero religious belief

    Not so. Trump believes he is God.

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