Trump manufactured this controversy when he traveled to Alabama a state with no NFL, NBA or MLB teams, (but a lot of Klan members) to launch attacks on athletes of color questioning their patriotism.
This morning after first trying to spin demonstrations of unity by linking arms as “good”, Donald Trump abandoned any pretense of restraint, and re-tweeted calls for an NFL Boycott. Then he followed that with yet another tweet attempting to characterize kneeling to protest against excessive police violence against people of color, as being insufficiently respectful of the flag.
Americans died for their country not for a symbolic piece of cloth.
Once again Trump empathizes symbols over substance. Trump’s base has great reverence for symbols while not seeming to revere the core principals our nation is organized around like equality, and democracy to the same degree. Those core principals are what give those national symbols like the American Flag and the National Anthem their very meaning.