In the latest of her numerous I-hate-Trump poison pen screeds, USA Today Sports' Nancy Armour calls Trump cruel for dividing the families of illegal aliens. And she claims he's disparaging NFL social justice activists in attempting to divert attention away from his own political shortcomings. More importantly, she reveals how the NFL Players Coalition is practically turning into a "political action committee."
Armour's criticism of Trump and the border issue is actually directing attention away from the fact that NFL Players coalition members (see CNN's Van Jones, right in photo above, interviewing coalition leader Harold Jenkins of Philadelphia Eagles in February) are seeking off-the-field solutions to their gripes. Which is where their complaints should have been handled in the first place! Not during the national anthem. But instead of admitting this, Armour instead vilifies Trump:
"While President Donald Trump continues to use the NFL protests to deflect from his administration’s blatant cruelty – in this case, its practice of separating immigrant children from their parents – the players he criticizes remain undeterred."
These undeterred social justice warriors are turning the Players Coalition into a "political action-like committee," lobbying prosecutors at the city and state levels and holding forums all across the country demanding prison reform. They're holding voter registration drives. They're doing all this with the $89 million war chest the NFL, thanks to generous ticket buyers, gave them. Fans must be just tickled that some of their ticket dollars will help Democrats running for office. Not.
In writing about the players' off-field activities, Armour fails to admit that this is where their activism belongs, not in the face of 75,000 insulted fans at the stadium on game day. While praising the players' activism, she says, "It would be easy to be outraged at Trump’s ignorance and privilege, to respond angrily to his suggestion Friday that the NFL protests were just for show. But to do that is to play into his hands and amplify his false narrative of the protests – and the men who staged them – being disrespectful and un-American."
On Friday, Trump told Fox News the players should not get into politics and that when he invited them to suggest the names of prisoners to pardon, he got zero response. " If they're aggrieved, I'll pardon them. I'll get them out," he said. The crickets are still chirping on that offer.
Armour's excuse for the players' silence is that they must be skeptical of a man "who has used them as political props and whose interest in addressing the shortcomings of our criminal justice system appears limited to photo ops." She concludes that "history will grant them the last word."
The last word here is that Armour is using disgruntled athletes and their newly formed "PAC-like" coalition to prop up her latest Trump-hating screed.
