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Marginalization.

HuffPo demands more harassment of Tom Brady for supporting Trump

By Dan Calabrese ——--January 30, 2017

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You've probably already heard about the media getting in Tom Brady's grill about his horrific sin - not winning too many Super Bowls, and not DeflateGate (in which, if you ask me, he was totally innocent). No, Brady must be interrogated and held accountable for doing that which is not permitted in polite society. How dare he commit an offense so egregious as to be friends with Donald Trump? Now why, you might wonder, is it a news story just because a particular star athlete favors one political candidate over another? Surely throughout the NFL there are many Republican voters and many Democrat voters. In no individual case can this really be considered news, can it?
Ah, but it can if the media decides it's going to use this particular method to marginalize Republican voters. It works like this: Trump is so awful that every high-profile American has a duty to oppose him, and if anyone does not, this is a news story because the people must know that this rogue superstar is failing to live up to his civic responsibilities. He must be pressed by the media to explain his sin. And now comes the Huffington Post, which is upset that Brady isn't suffering enough media harassment for his support of Trump:
By placing Trump’s hat in front of media members, Brady was endorsing his billionaire buddy and everything his politics entail. And these politics are far more deadly and corrosive to the United States than any policy Kaepernick has publicly supported. Donald Trump is objectively and undeniably un-American. So is supporting him. It’s time to really ask why, then, has Brady’s endorsement of and friendship with Trump been treated so differently from Kaepernick’s protests. And what do we really believe in? If the outrage about Kaepernick is really about respecting the troops, then Brady should be held to the same fire for supporting a man with such disregard for the men and women who fight for this country. If it’s about the amorphous idea of respecting the flag, then we have to hold Brady accountable for backing someone with so little respect for the laws of the country. The obvious answer, which is also the answer that got us in this mess to begin with, is simple: for far too long America has been too uncomfortable with a Black man standing for his beliefs and far too accepting of a white man expressing his, no matter whom his beliefs end up harming in the process.
But there’s still time. The Super Bowl is in a week and a half. There’s still time to question Brady about his un-American beliefs and treat him like the media treated Kaepernick. Then we’ll really see how well he holds up under pressure.
The comparison to Colin Kaepernick is especially absurd. For one thing, Kaepernick received something on the order of hero worship for his willingness to slander police officers as justification for kneeling during the national anthem. The idea that he took any sort of heat from the media is simply insane. But in terms of news judgment, Kaepernick's actions were news because a) they took place on the football field; and b) they were outside the norm for pro athletes. Under normal circumstances, every player stands for the national anthem regardless of his politics. The fact that Kaepernick refused to do so and stated a social activist reason for his refusal is what made it news. No one covered, criticized or otherwise paid the slightest attention to Kaepernick simply because he decided to embrace liberal politics. Lots of other players do that, and it's not news. It's not news that Tom Brady has a political point of view either. The HuffPo would have you believe that Brady, by virtue of being a superstar pro athlete, has some sort of moral obligation to oppose Trump. And they want the media to treat it as a major scandal that Brady doesn't do that.

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This isn't the first time the media have tried to browbeat athletes into supporting their social or political agenda. We've talked before about reporters getting in athletes' faces and demanding to know how they would feel about having a gay teammate, and then treating it like a scandal if they say anything other than, "It would be wonderful!" Now they're doing the same thing as part of their war against President Trump. This is the acceptable opinion for you to hold. This is your opinion, isn't it? It would certainly make for a shocking scandal if it is not! If the Patriots win the Super Bowl on Sunday, Commissioner Roger Goodell will be forced to eat crow as he hands the trophy to Brady, after Goodell falsely accused Brady of cheating and abused his authority as commissioner to punish him for an offense he didn't commit. From the looks of things, HuffPo and the rest of the media will have to eat something as well. UPDATE: USA Today has joined in too.
Dan's new novel, BACKSTOP, is a story of spiritual warfare and baseball. Download it from Amazon here
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Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

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