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More on the National Felon’s League

Steven Malanga at the City Journal [1];

It’s often said that trends in professional sports mirror the larger society, and certainly the growing distance between increasingly rich players—”tattooed millionaires,” to some—and their fans reflects the same kind of division that drove millions of blue-collar voters to Trump. Once upon a time, professional athletes not only came out of working-class, scrappy neighborhoods, but they also pretty much stayed working class their entire lives. Until as recently as the late 1960s, NFL lineman worked construction or loaded trucks in the offseason to pay their bills. Players with a college degree traded on their celebrity status to sell stocks or insurance. (The policy my mother cashed in when my father died was sold to him in the early 1960s by a retired New York Giants player). Many of today’s players, by contrast, live in a world of ostentatious homes, fast cars, and red-carpet celebrity appearances, far from the struggles of those whose support pays their salaries. These players have deemed themselves important enough to impose their political views on ordinary fans watching sports as a respite from life’s daily grind.

The NFL is the logical battleground for Trump’s latest counterattack. The league’s fans are more likely to lean conservative [2] than fans of other leagues, and the sportswriter Jason Whitlock has described the league itself as a conservative institution, though one that has “made millionaires out of thousands of black men.” The anthem protests, started last season by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, came about at the same time that NFL ratings were declining. Though the league at first discounted any relationship between the ratings and the controversy, subsequent studies have confirmed [3] that the protests have in fact in driven away viewers who find the posturing tasteless. That should be no surprise to Giants owner John Mara, who observed that when his team was considering signing Kaepernick, fans were vocally opposed: “All my years being in the league, I never received more emotional mail from people than I did about that issue: ‘If any of your players ever do that, we are never coming to another Giants game,'” Mara said.

And.a few thoughts about all this. Firstly, the point about Colin Kaepernick being the start of this whole thing is well taken.

Now, keep in mind New York City and environs are generally considered to be a leftist driven environment. Their election results almost invariably tilt left. and Giants fans have been particularly forgiving with the Antics that have been going on in the team for a couple of decades now. And yet, those same fans were quite vocal about not bringing Kaepernick onto the team. CLUE!!

The decision not to bring Colin Kaepernick onto any NFL team was purely a reaction to his abilities or inabilities as a player. He’s simply not NFL material beyond possibly third-string. It was he himself who raised the racism charge …and the fact of the matter is he did it trying to better his situation. It’s backfired on him big time and he and the rest of the players in the league know it. Instead of bettering his situation, his mouth made the situation for him that much worse. He deserves what he gets.

As for a direct response to the charge of racism driving the reaction to these events, the context of that charge can be found in lesser amounts on any stable floor, and smelling a great deal better.

The American people in general and particularly the American sports fans have identified anti-American sentiments among these individuals and have reacted accordingly, and in near unison.

Folks, I’m not going to mince any words with this one.

We’re talking about a group of people who has routinely been abusing wives girlfriends drugs and anything else they can get their hands on, dogfighting, etc… and they’ve been getting a by with it scot free because (some of them at least) can play football. Remember when leftists used to scream about the 1%? Now, they defend them. I guess it’s all a matter of convenience.

It was bound to come to a head eventually, this, and this was the subject that came to a head over.

The animals pushing this nonsense can scream all they like about how this is about Donald Trump’s America. The fact is it doesn’t have anything to do with Trump. They’d be screaming the same nonsense against anyone who is to the right of Hillary Clinton. You and I both know it. And so too, the American people.

Nor does it have anything to do with racism. The association of these individuals with people whose sole interest is the demise of these United States is undeniable, and it’s about time that we started dealing with it on that basis.I suggest to you that the fans have already moved in that direction.

Nor does it have anything to do with freedom of speech. If you think freedom of speech is the real issue here, consider the reaction of these players that somebody was waving a Confederate flag in the stands. Or, on the field for that matter.

And the league has nobody to blame but themselves for all of this.