By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--January 30, 2017
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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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