Trump has really stepped into something potentially disastrous, this time. Often content to bully the weak and defenseless, the current occupant has, this time, taken a swing at professional athletes protesting injustice, independent men, strong and, potentially, united in opposition to Trump, while, at the same time, bent on demonstrating their support for Black Lives Matter. This is an unfolding pubic relations disaster for conservative messaging, which depends heavily upon demonization of BLM as a shibboleth, promoting white privilege and rationalizing minority oppression. Trump has now provided extra lights, cameras, amplifiers, reporters and American eyeballs to what formerly might have passed by as a limited and small scale protest.
How could this have ever happened to the smartest guy who knows all the best words and surrounds himself with the best people? There are a lot of things that Trump must surely know about professional athletes, but must have forgot when he unleashed this latest tweetskrieg. A short list would include:
1. Professional athletes are young. Gallup says that Trump’s support for Trump among 18-29 year olds has sunk to 20%. Not too long ago, USA Today took a look at the average age of NFL Teams. It ranged from 24.98 — 27.15 years.
2. Professional athletes are college educated. This is especially true of the NFL which uses the NCAA as its farm system. Educated people aren’t too crazy about Trump. Go figure. In 2016, in America’s 50 best educated counties, according to fivethirtyeight.com, support for Trump slumped, and support for Clinton surged to outpace President Obama’s 2008 margins of victory.
3. Professional athletes are predisposed to band together to overcome opponents. There is no I in team, right?
4. Professional athletes’ TV audiences are way bigger than any President’s. During the 2016 season an average of 264 million people watched the NFL each week. On the other hand, at Trump’s favorite TV hangout, Fox News, in their latest ratings, had 2,352,000 total viewers during primetime.
5. Truth, justice and the American Way are on the athletes’ side. The NFL is almost 70% Black players. Excepting maybe the NHL, athletes of color dominate rosters pretty much everywhere in major sports leagues. Yet, almost all of those rosters also include numbers of equally young, educated, telegenic, white people, who, given their predisposition to teamwork, and the natural receptiveness of young men to peer pressure, will soon be found everywhere, taking their own knees. The resultant cognitive dissonance for conservative viewers may shock some of the weaker minded, particularly the ones who live in the red states where college football means the most. Viewers who learned to idolize favorite former players at the enormous state university, tuning in to see their idol now taking a knee,in support of Black Lives Matter, will have more to process than just a game, More people need to be thinking about dismantling the structural racism that continues to blight American life. This kind of highly visible protest can help get more conversations going about the necessity for and how to do the required demolition work.
As more players join this demonstration, pressure will grow on the rest. Once all of the athletes are on their knees for the anthem, every game, then maybe America can move on to the next step — working toward the day when the players can proudly stand up again.
Sometimes, patriotism requires protest. Take a knee, America.