Trump Just Demanded That The NFL “Force” Players To Stand For The National Anthem

Trump must not have slept very well last night, because this morning he got out of bed and immediately launched into a tweetstorm, ping-ponging between unrelated topics with the attention span of a goldfish, venting about every little issue that’s gotten under his thin-skin recently.

One of the most egregious tweets was directed at Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-FL). Trump accused her of lying when she said that she was in the car with the widow of a slain serviceman and heard a phone call in which Trump said the deceased soldier “knew what he signed up for.”

Trump also decided it would be a good idea this morning to once again reignite his utterly pointless feud with the NFL. This time, however, he didn’t even bother to hide the authoritarian underpinning of his entire argument.

He lamented that players weren’t being “forced” to stand for the national anthem. Whether he wants them to be forced by threatening their careers or somehow physically forced is unclear, but both are unacceptable.

Players who choose to kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality against people of color are legally exercising their First Amendment rights. No one is being hurt, and despite what Trump and his cronies claim, it has nothing to do with being unpatriotic or anti-military. The president shouldn’t be involved in this conversation at all.

The idea that people would be “forced” into standing for the national anthem is a frightening prospect. Forced patriotism isn’t patriotism, its fascism.

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