Baby steps, Washington Post, baby steps. On November 1, the Post published yet another long (1,166 words) piece about the NFL’s viewership woes. But unlike the last one, sports columnist Sally Jenkins mentioned the elephant kneeling in the sports newsroom.
After exploring at length the plague of penalty flags and the mediocrity of the league, Jenkins noted, “Donald Trump has blamed Colin Kaepernick for dissing the national anthem for the fall in ratings. If that’s a factor, then undoubtedly so are narratives involving concussions and domestic violence.”
Get that? Oh yeah, there’s this thing about millionaire thugs flipping the bird to the nation that made them rich. But it was brought up by that odious Donald Trump so it hardly counts. And even if it did, there’s other stuff going on with football that liberals can actually care about.
Maybe Jenkins deserves points for venturing even a cursory reference. It must seem strange from a perch at The Washington Post, but many of the people who buy the tickets and jerseys and branded seat cushions – not to mention the beer and chips and cars in the zillion ads – rather like their country and understand that an insult to it is an insult to them.
Research shows that 56% of adults cite the anthem protests as a reason for the NFL’s ratings dive. But the lefty sports types at the Post are pretty obtuse. They wasted years and oceans of ink trying to convince American Indians to be offended by the name Redskins. It was a valiant effort, but at long last, 90% of Native Americans said they had better things to worry about. The Post finally bowed to reality and threw in the towel. Maybe they’ll admit the NFL has a protest problem when 90% of Americans tell them so.
