Trump Praises Dallas Cowboys' Owner, Who Probably Wishes POTUS Would Shut Up

Trump is doing his best to make sure the NFL's national anthem controversy never dies.

Polaris/SIPA/Newscom

President Donald Trump expressed his support today for the Dallas Cowboys' national anthem policy. To judge from his comments earlier this week, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones might not be very happy about the endorsement.

Jones said at a press conference Wednesday that everyone on his team must stand for the pre-game playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner." In other words, don't protest police brutality or anything else by kneeling during the anthem. The Cowboys are instituting this rule even though the National Football League announced last week that it was suspending a policy requiring players on the field to stand.

The Cowboys are now the only team with such a rule in place. Trump thinks the rest of the league should follow suit:

Way to go Jerry. This is what the league should do! https://t.co/yEP1jK57xi

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2018

But Jones seems to wish Trump would stay out of it, calling Trump's interest in the issue "problematic" and "unprecedented." Jones says he wants the entire debate would simply "go away."

Trump, by contrast, has gone out of his way to ensure the controversy doesn't die. Ever since last September, when he said the "sons of bitches" who kneel should be "fired," the president has tried to rile up his supporters by coming down hard on the NFL. Last month, for example, he disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles from the White House after they won the Super Bowl, citing a disagreement over the anthem controversy. And last week, the president suggested some punishments for players who kneel:

The NFL National Anthem Debate is alive and well again - can't believe it! Isn't it in contract that players must stand at attention, hand on heart? The $40,000,000 Commissioner must now make a stand. First time kneeling, out for game. Second time kneeling, out for season/no pay!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2018

At this rate, the battle will rage on through 2020. And that, no doubt, is exactly what the president wants.

Comments

[Leo Kovalensky II]

I like my football with a heavy dose of authoritarianism. "Stand with your toes on that line, boy. You damn-well better respect that flag because countless Americans have died for your freedom."

[Just Say'n]

It is "America's Team". What's more American than arbitrary rules?

[Leo Kovalensky II]

The irony of forced respect for an object that represents freedom.

[Just Say'n]

"Irony" is not something that they teach in America anymore

[Last of the Shitlords]

Respect shouldn't be forced, but in this case it is goddamn well earned.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Sometimes earned, sometimes not, sometimes squandered.

A libertarian would understand.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The real irony is that this all started with a disgruntled QB who began protesting after he lost his starting position on the team.

[DiegoF]

Boycotting the white man's weight room couldn't have helped much either.

[Rhywun]

Nobody is telling them to respect anything. The perceived disrepect is what's at issue.

[Tony]

And why not? A black man allegedly being disrespectful got my home city half burned down a century ago. It's a real danger to us wholesome folks.

[Cy]

Your white guilt tastes delicious.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Tony, you're not wholesome, or a person.

[Just Say'n]

"In other words, don't protest police brutality or anything else by kneeling during the anthem."

Do any of these football players think that their preferred form of protest is not very effective and alienates more people than anything else?

I know, thou shalt not question, but this brand of protest seems to be as persuasive and effective as blocking an expressway: your message gets muddled and you just look like an ass

[Leo Kovalensky II]

I don't know. It's still a topic in public discourse several years after Kaepernick took a knee. Even the President of the United States is joining the conversation. Sounds pretty effective to me.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

It's almost like a better strategy for the patriotic fans would be to just ignore it rather than outrage over it.

[Just Say'n]

Their strategy seems to be to stop watching and that seems to have been more effective, otherwise the NFL wouldn't have attempted to institute that rule

[Just Say'n]

But all anyone is discussing is whether or not they should be allowed to kneel. Was that the purpose of the protest to begin with?

[TuIpa]

The president is joining the conversation because it is a winning issue for him, and his side is against the players. Effective yes, in a positive way for the players, nope.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

But you couldn't watch a football game without the cameras being on the players. Isn't that exactly what they wanted? They were never going to reach Trump supporters anyway.

[Just Say'n]

And yet, most viewers of football games are more conservative in their politics and that's why this is a bad form of protest

[TuIpa]

"But you couldn't watch a football game without the cameras being on the players. Isn't that exactly what they wanted?"

Why are you obtusely asking a question I already answered?

"Effective yes, in a positive way for the players, nope."

They wanted to look like heroes, not villains.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

I suspect that you're only looking at it through your patriotic conservative eyes. That may be a majority of NFL fans, but I don't think it's a super-majority. Many black people watch the NFL. I'd be curious to hear their perspective as well.

[TuIpa]

"That may be a majority of NFL fans"

And they matter the most to the NFL. And the NFL is the only thing getting these players any notoriety. So they are pissing off the people providing them a platform.

"Many black people watch the NFL. I'd be curious to hear their perspective as well"

Hmmm..

"They were never always going to reach Trump supporters black people anyway"

So they shit where they ate and changed basically no minds.

[creech]

Throughout history, kneeling has indicated submission - to God, to a Monarch, to one's enemy in hope he spares your life, begging wife for a blowjob. Now, fists raised in the air, that's a protest.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

*Lifts up Fist of Etiquette in protest of creech's opinion*

[Cy]

What if you lift a fist in the area while you're kneeling in front of your wife begging for the old mouth hug?!?!?

[Last of the Shitlords]

The players are at work, and are dancing monkeys for the amusement of their customers. No one gives a shit what they feel like doing at or during the game other than playing football.

Since they're all a bunch of millionaire celebrities with media access, maybe they can get together in their own time and set up some big event to draw awareness to whatever the fuck they're on about instead of hijackijg work time they're being paid for and insulting a good portion of their customer base. Something for which almost anyone else in any other paid position would be shitcanned for.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Downscale, authoritarian right-wingers are among my favorite faux libertarians.

Players should fight this by relying on a religious claim. Turn the conservative yahoos into a self-inflicted wad of twisted panties.

[Rhywun]

[...] the National Football League announced last week that it was suspending a policy requiring players on the field to stand. [...] At this rate, the battle will rage on through 2020. And that, no doubt, is exactly what the president wants.

So the one thing that could have actually ended the battle - a policy that is entirely within the NFL's right to impose and is quite reasonable to boot - is the one thing that won't happen. The whole brouhaha is entirely on the NFL here. We would have been at the same place Trump or no Trump. Do you think the NFL was going to tolerate their fan's complaints at all the kneeling under a president Clinton?

[Leo Kovalensky II]

To be fair here, the kneeling became widespread AFTER Trump made a big deal about it on Twitter. To my earlier point, I think that if it had just been largely ignored you would see a whole lot less kneeling, and maybe none at all at this point. Kaepernick isn't even in the league anymore, AFAIK.

If people are protesting, it's because they want attention. The last thing opponents should do is give them exactly what they want.

[Just Say'n]

That's right and the president thrives off of attention for the sake of attention. He made this a topic of conversation to a degree that wouldn't have occurred if it weren't for his verbal diarrhea.

[Just Say'n]

But again, the conversation is not about police abuse- it's over something moronic: should football players be allowed to kneel

[Cy]

It is stupid, but it's proven to be quite effective.

[Last of the Shitlords]

By kneel, you mean protest on the job. And the answer is no. Anyone else would get fired for those kinds of antics. No one else gets to insult customers and keep their job like this.

Maybe these pampered athletes should just go and get one of those endless number of multimillion dollar employment contracts doing althose other things people with their skill set can get. Some they are so fucking entitled.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

By kneel, you mean protest on the job. And the answer is no. Anyone else would get fired for those kinds of antics.

Fire them then. The owners have every right. The problem is that you can easily replace most people in America. It's hard to replace the best athletes and keep up the quality of play. Which is why the players command such large salaries in the first place.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That's the ideal solution.

Let the bigoted, hick owners fire the protesting players and stock their teams with toe-the-line submissive types.

Let the libertarian and liberal owners populate their rosters based on merit.

Good times.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

Yep, the players fucked up badly by opposing a completely fair and reasonable policy. I guess they felt like they had to because of a union principle and all that shit, but it's still a huge mistake.

Anyone who has read Sun Tzu knows that it's pointless to fight a battle that you can't possibly ever win. The players simply are not going to be allowed to visibly engage in political protest before and during games or deliberately do anything that offends the NFL's paying customers, period, end of story. And anyone who thinks otherwise is just a God-damned fool.

If players aren't willing to do what they're told within reason by their bosses when they're at work, they can always try their hand at starting up their own business or becoming a brain surgeon or something, like any other employee.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If players aren't willing to do what they're told within reason by their bosses when they're at work,

Not a fan of snowflake-codding rules for religious claimants on the job? Or just ignoring ostensible principles to complain about black guys?

Carry on, clingers.

[modis]

Back after Ferguson, before BLM existed, there was a burgeoning movement for police accountability. Then BLM happened, and the pro-cop people recoiled at the assertion that cops were racist, and the accountability movement died.

Now, you can blame one side, both sides, whatever, but I still have some lingering bitterness over the idea that racialism killed an accountability movement that would have solved the problem BLM blames on racism. And rather than be pragmatic, and go with the flow to get what they wanted, instead they introduced their own political agenda and killed it stone dead.

Is that because pro-cop people are so racist that they can't get on board with BLM? Possibly. Probably in some cases. It may also be that people see the results of race based policies.

It is also beside the point. BLM was going to get what they claimed they wanted. These players are an outgrowth of BLM, so they get no sympathy from me. They did it to themselves.

[modis]

I guess I should have said "before the previously irrelevant BLM gained infamy"

[Tony]

How do you talk about the problem of police brutality against black people without bringing race into it?

[Just Say'n]

http://www.quillette.com/2018/05/24/f.....rm-debate/

[Just Say'n]

"Thirdly, the focus on the cocaine/crack disparity ignores other complicating examples. Methamphetamine is predominantly used and dealt by whites and the distribution of five grams of meth is also punishable by five years in prison. As Mike Riggs observed in an article for Reason, "With the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, the minimum quantity of crack cocaine necessary for a five-year mandatory minimum was raised to 28 grams; the minimum quantity for methamphetamine remains five grams."

[Just Say'n]

http://www.reason.com/blog/2017/03/14.....ows-a-decl

[modis]

Accountability for cops solves the problem for everyone. Accountability for any brutality solves the problem of " police brutality against black people "

[Tony]

But it's not a problem for everyone. It's a problem for black people. If it became a problem for white people, it would get solved. That's how things work in this country.

[modis]

Oh I see you're a troll.

[Last of the Shitlords]

"Oh I see you're a troll."

Modi, you have no idea. Sadly, he isn't arguably any worse than zpalin's Buttplug and neither are as bad as Michael Hihn when he's off his meds (literally).

God help you sir.

[Just Say'n]

The statistics don't support your contention. The racialization of everything by the Left is why this issue has become so polarized.

[modis]

Regardless of who it is a problem for, and Tony is wrong it is a problem for everyone, the solution of overall accountability solves everyone's problem, without introducing a racial element.

An accountable police for is accountable mistreatring an old lady, or a businessman, or two black teens, or an illegal alien.

Tony's post didn't even make sense.

[Tony]

Cops are a problem for everyone, and I'll be the first to say so.

It is frustrating that nobody can ever talk about real, specific race-related problems without the white grievance set whining about being uncomfortable.

The sad reality is that strictly black problems don't get addressed in this country without herculean effort. So you're on track as far as that goes. But surely you're not denying that blacks have a particular problem with cops. What's debatable is the political strategy employed to deal with that problem.

[Ben_]

Yeah. We're tired of the shakedown. Too bad so many legitimate black problems got hijacked by community organizers who are mostly trying to get paid off.

[Rhywun]

"But it's not a problem for everyone."

Pro-tip, modis: Tony does not argue in good faith.

[modis]

Thank you, I think I'll move on.

[Azathoth!!]

How do you talk about the problem of police brutality against black people without bringing race into it?

Because the problem isn't just police brutality against black people. It's police brutality against anyone.

If you take that problem of brutality and make it into something that cannot be solved without first solving a much larger and more pervasive issue--racism-- you guarantee that you will never get to the smaller and eminently more solvable issue of police brutality.

[Tony]

I probably agree with the political strategy angle to this, but if people are going to whine about race being brought into it, I can make fun of you right back about white people going "But will anyone think about the poor white people??"

So solving issues perceived as being specific to black people is a most difficult thing, and it probably can't be done without getting buy-in from white people.

It would just be nice if there weren't so many white people who contributed to the problem by caring more about feeling uncomfortable for 3 minutes than about black people being murdered.

[Ben_]

When you protest for the benefit of one race only, everyone of every other race wonders why they should care. If black folks don't care about police abuse of whites or Latinos, why should whites or Latinos care about police abuse of blacks?

Is it about us vs. them, or is it about right and wrong? Making it us vs. them and then narrowly defining "us" is counterproductive to solving the problem. But it's good for fundraising and then getting paid to protest.

[Tony]

I was fine with Black Lives Matter being about black lives, and I'm white. Not everything has to be about me. I'm already lucky enough that I can get into a bona fide argument with a cop and come away without so much as a tasering.

That there are enough white people who insist that everything has to be about them all the time is a problem, but surely the problem is with the whiny-ass white people.

[Ben_]

You are free to care about something for the benefit of some people who don't care about you at all (or who actively consider you an enemy). Not sure why anyone else would want to join you though.

Too bad it wasn't communicated as a right vs. wrong thing ? lots of people care about right vs. wrong.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Fun Fact: The National anthem is about the US Army's failure and the citizens of America's greatest battle (Concord and Lex maybe greater but I'm from Md). The song describes the battle of Ft McHenry which was fought because Army allowed DC to burn and citizens of Baltimore/MD repelled the invaders so that their city wouldn't share the same fate.

[Cy]

How on earth could local citizens repel a professional military?!?! That's preposterous!

[Last of the Shitlords]

On an unrelated note, we should totes get on board with scrapping 2A.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Definitely nothing good has come from it. Just look at how Maryland turned out.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Fun Fact: The National anthem is about the US Army's failure and the citizens of America's greatest battle (Concord and Lex maybe greater but I'm from Md). The song describes the battle of Ft McHenry which was fought because Army allowed DC to burn and citizens of Baltimore/MD repelled the invaders so that their city wouldn't share the same fate.

[Tony]

Trump people openly admit that Trump doesn't give the first flying fuck about the national anthem, but he likes it as a cultural wedge issue to get the mouth-breathers whooping at his rallies.

[Cy]

I suppose it's unfair that Trump uses dog whistles. His opponents would never stoop so low.... never... EVER!

[Last of the Shitlords]

"Trump people openly admit that Trump doesn't give the first flying fuck about the national anthem"

Where? When?

I don't admit that. In fact, I'm sure he finds that kneeling shit fairly irksome too. You just don't understand because you're a progressive sociopath that could never be capable of the slightest bit of patriotism. So you can't imagine anyone else being patriotic either.

[Tony]

I'm saying you are being duped by the laziest trick in politics: appeal to people's shallow patriotism. And it's so transparently shallow that it seems like a big fat joke.

Trump is almost beyond doubt the least patriotic president this country has ever had. It's why he's so comfortable exploiting the gullibility of rubes like you for votes: because he doesn't give a shit about you.

[Ben_]

If you don't want attention, then don't protest. Protesting is explicitly seeking attention.

Coaches and team owners should have immediately suspended the protesting players for one simple reason: football is a team sport. No individual protests ? be a team player or stay home. Instead, everyone forgot the team. They've been paying a steep price for that ever since.

[Tony]

Of course they wanted attention. What's the point of protesting in private?

Perhaps everyone underestimated how much Trump's America is actually fine with the black population being thinned by cops.

[Cy]

Gee, doing something that you know will have consequences and then acting like you're some kind of victim when the consequences roll around, isn't that proggy 101?

[Ben_]

Maybe Trump's America just doesn't want everything in life to become a propaganda tool for the usual hate-America crowd who will always complain about the US, regardless of anything.

[Tony]

"Sadly, the American dream is dead."

How sad do you think Trump really was when he said that?

[Ben_]

Non sequiturs are sad.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

If football players weren't by and large a bunch of fucking morons and had any sense at all, they would forget about this stupid and pointless battle that they cannot and will not ever win, and instead focus their energies on something like securing better long term medical care from the league for their permanently fucked-up brains and bodies.

Not only would that be far more beneficial to them, they'd have a lot more support from the general public too.

[Last of the Shitlords]

This whole article is just more TDS bullshit from Reason.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

The overuse of "TDS" is kind of like the overuse of "racism" or "NAZI" by the left. The more you use that term, the more you cheapen its effect.

[DiegoF]

I still don't know how this thing hasn't spread to the NBA, which has escaped scot free. If someone decided to launch their own protest at this point, it would be far more awkward for them, since they have always had their players out standing for the anthem, and have had a very strictly enforced, explicit mandatory policy since the Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf incident a quarter century ago.

But still, nothing. Not one. Which I guess shows you that what is being protested at this point is the NFL, not police brutality as alleged.