Irreversible Injury

I often wonder whether President Trump tweets and/or speaks impulsively or with a grand plan in mind. His latest tweetstorm concerns the well-publicized but ultimately insignificant issue of NFL players kneeling when the National Anthem is played at the beginning of the game. There are many aspects to the story---free speech, the politicization of sports, the meaning of the national anthem and the flag, and the reported disproportionate killing of unarmed black men by police--all against the backdrop of football CTE injuries, criminal behavior by NFL players, and multi-billions of dollars spent each year on America's most popular sport.

I've been a fan of the local teams, the 49ers and Raiders, for most of my adult life, but there's very little of that world (athletics, big money, fame) that I can identify with. To the extent that I can relate to anyone in this sorry mess, it would be President Trump.

When he said that players who kneel during the National Anthem should be "fired" and that owners should "get that son of a bitch off that field", I think he went way over the top; however he was right about a basic business principle that politics should have been kept off the field.

I have worked for large companies most of my life. Political speech is verboten for good reason: no matter how righteous I may think my cause, my espousal of those views would antagonize some customers and some co-workers. (The First Amendment applies to government control of speech; workplace speech is another matter entirely--if I dissed my employer out loud, he would be justified in getting rid of me.)

If I wore a "Black Lives Matter" shirt or a "Make America Great Again" hat, my employer would give me a warning, then fire me if I didn't remove the offending garment. And if the cameras had been rolling, I wouldn't even get a warning.

The vast majority of Americans have worked in such circumscribed environments where speech and behavior are limited while on the job.

Colin Kaepernick, whom I believe is sincere and do respect, should have been warned, then banned from the field if he continued to kneel for the Anthem. (At the same time the NFL could also have put money and time into addressing the issue that concerned Mr. Kaepernick.)

Now it's too late, and the injury to football is probably irreversible.