CSotD: Days of Whine Neurosis
Skip to comments
RJ Matson best sums up Trump's call for the special prosecutor to stop looking into his campaign and for an investigation of why the FBI is doing its job.
This whining seems particularly bizarre coming from the side of the spectrum in which police mistreatment of black people is blamed on black people acting suspiciously. Like waiting for a business partner at a Starbucks or having a barbecue in their yard or carrying a large amount of melanin on their persons.
But it's likely to work, because the guy who questioned Obama's birth certificate is now peddling a paranoid delusion about a dark shadow government to a basketful of deplorables who will believe anything as long as it's not being told to them by the mainstream press and gives them the sense of being in on the secrets.
It's interesting, in a disengaged theoretical sort of way, to speculate as to whether Trump actually believes the preposterous horseshit he shovels or is simply doing it to shore up his base.
But the problem isn't that he says these things but that he's got people believing them. There's a quote going around that he told Lesley Stahl he attacks the press so that people will stop believing them, and he has — purposefully or not — succeeded in undermining faith in nearly everything.
He is the result of this process, not its inventor: A few decades of promoting a sense of unjust repression of the Silent Majority has resulted in a Republican congress that is delighted to line up behind Dear Leader and take advantage of his mania.
November will tell the tale. Either the people will rise up or they will settle in.
Juxtaposition of the Day
(
(
(Meanwhile, there are several truly unfortunate aspects of the NFL owners decision to fine teams if their players do not either hide in the lockerroom or stand at attention for the national anthem.
Other cartoonists have weighed in on this and I'm sure more will, because it's more fun to comment on things like football and the Yanni/Laurel thing than to dig down into more complicated issues, but we ought not to be fooled by the idea that this is a "sports story."
In fact, I'm reminded of when some sportswriters complained that the news side was taking the OJ Simpson murder story away from them, to which someone responded that, if Julia Child killed somebody, it would not be covered in the cooking section.
Powell is right that it is a sop to the pressure Trump placed upon the NFL, Davies is correct that it is hypocritical to demand that people not exercise the freedom the anthem represents and Litton is right that the whole thing could have quietly diminished if everyone had just been cool like little Fonzies.
To that last point, there was talk some months ago that the league would take steps to address the concerns of players who were protesting police brutality against visible minorities, which makes it regrettable that the owners then came up with this policy without bothering to consult with the players union or announcing any specifics of their plan to fund community relations programs.
Complimenting the players for their own social activity neither addresses the issue nor shows true concern and, if the owners intend to follow through on developing programs, they need to make those plans public immediately.
Stand up, or stand aside, because we've already watched you stand in the doorway and block up the halls.
Now, as Good Morning Football cohost Kyle Brandt said this morning, a league that can't decide the definition of a legal catch has taken on the task of interpreting the First Amendment.
The fact that Dear Leader inserted himself into the controversy adds to the problem because it's no longer an issue between players and owners, or the league and the public.
Whether Trump stirred it up or simply ran out in front of the parade and pretended to be the drum major, he'll get credit for — and will joyfully misrepresent — the policy.
Again, Trump is not the cause but the result: The NFL began conflating football and patriotism back in the first Gulf War, and ratcheted things up after 9/11.
Specifically after September 11, the NFL debated canceling games, with the argument for playing them being that people needed a chance to come together.
To which then-Jets coach Herm Edwards suggested they come together at churches and not at a football game.
Here's how he remembers things:
I had a meeting with my football team. I said ‘We don't have to get on the plane and go play the Oakland Raiders. If you guys decide you don't want to play, we won't play.' And I said ‘I'm going to leave, and you guys vote on what you want to do.'
I came back 20 minutes later and they said ‘Coach, we don't want to get on the plane.' I called the owner and told him and said ‘You better call the commissioner. We're not getting on the plane.' He said, what if they don't cancel the games. I said, ‘Well, we're going to forfeit.'
That was my first year as a head coach. I was 0-1 already. I was about to be 0-2 but didn't care. It had nothing to do with the game. What had happened to this country was bigger than that football game.
And for me to be a head coach, I had to take a stand and say, ‘No. We're not doing this.' Eventually, the league, by Thursday, said they were cancelling all the games.
Instead, the team got on buses, went to the site and handed out supplies to the first responders.
I wouldn't insist that the NFL Commissioner be a man of color, or a man who has played the game, but I'd suggest he be a man of integrity, compassion and sound judgment.
But, then, I feel that way about the presidency, too.
It's just not that goddam complex.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
Comments 10