In case it's escaped your radar, football has-been Colin Kaepernick is trying to stop the spread of the coronavirus while President Donald Trump and liberate-the-state "white-wing" protesters are encouraging its spread. That's the not-so-brilliant deduction of Deadspin sports lite writer Chuck Modiano Thursday.
"As small groups of protesters violated stay-at-home and social distancing policies amidst the COVID-19 quarantine, Trump lauded the lawbreakers as freedom fighters," Modiano claims:
"In a string of tweets, Trump called to 'LIBERATE' Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia — states where protesters gathered to oppose stay-at-home orders declared by Democratic governors."
Modiano calls the activities of "white-winged" protesters illegal and he unfavorably compares their actions to those of Kaepernick, who engaged in peaceful, legal, almost lovable, protest prior to the start of NFL games in 2016. We may have forgotten this after four years, but good citizen Kaep was practically Lionel Ritchie singing "We Are the World" when he knelt during the national anthem!
President Trump, who in 2017 referred to Kaepernick and other NFL protesters as SOBs who need to be taken off the league's playing fields, said of the freedom protesters, during a news conference:
“These are great people. They’ve got cabin fever. They want their life back. Their life was taken away from them.”
Kaepernick also "wants his life back after protesting on behalf of those who literally had their lives taken away from them," Modiano whines. Modiano says even by Trumpian standards, the president’s hypocrisy is overwhelming. It's "Great People vs Sons of Bitches." Furthermore, Modiano writes:
"Unlike Trump’s lawless 'liberators', Kaepernick’s peaceful protests broke no laws or even NFL rules.
"Unlike their behavior which endangered lives, Kaepernick’s protest was to save lives."
Trump’s Twitter call to gun-toting protesters to “Save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” could lead to violence, Modiano fears. The Deadspin detector of truth claims health experts and the vast majority of Americans agree with the stay-at-home orders, and the "fringe far right-wing protesters organized by fringe far right-wing groups" are getting far too much attention. (Especially from liberal sports writers!)
Modiano takes exception to the liberty protesters displaying upside-down flags, too, and concludes:
"What Trump and the liberate-the-state protesters show is that from Ferguson to Kaepernick, the issue was never ever about 'disrespecting the flag,' but about objections to the racial justice protest itself."
Ah, now we're getting somewhere: the peaceful protest praised by sports writers for the past four years is no longer acceptable. Modiano sees hypocrisy going the other way now:
"White-wingers can hold upside-down flags, break the law, and endanger lives, but get viewed as patriots. When black people peacefully and legally protest, they are unpatriotic subversive sons of bitches.
"And this double-standard has long preceded Donald Trump."
If only these people could see the truth, they'd realize "Kaepernick is trying to stop the spread of the virus. Donald Trump and his liberate-the-state protesters are encouraging its spread."
Kaepernick, who's worth millions from playing in the NFL, fleecing it in a legal settlement for a blackballing charge never proven and his lucrative pact with the corporate Left (Nike), gave $100,000 to a COVID19 relief fund. "Now you tell me who the real patriot is?" Modiano writes, mistaking a donation by an America hater for patriotism.
