WHAT AMERICANS THINK ABOUT NFL PROTESTS AND TRUMP
Whenever President Trump sets off a new controversy, there’s always a period of hairon-fire commentary, usually conducted in the absence of polls or other evidence of public opinion. It’s happened again and again, the latest example being the president, the NFL and the national anthem.
Trump set things off Sept. 22 during a speech in Alabama. Now, after some time has passed, there are new polls with information on the underlying issue — NFL players protesting during the national anthem — and Trump’s treatment of it.
On the protests, the short version is, the public, which disapproved when Colin Kaepernick first refused to stand for the anthem last year, still disapproves.
A new CBS poll asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of football players protesting by kneeling during the national anthem?” Fifty-two percent said they strongly or somewhat disapprove, while 38 percent said they strongly or somewhat approve, and 9 percent said they haven’t heard enough to say.
The disapprove-approve numbers were 51-39 in a new ESPN poll.
Fox News asked, “In general, do you think kneeling during the national anthem is an appropriate — or inappropriate — form of protest?” Fifty-five percent said inappropriate, while 41 percent said appropriate, and 5 percent didn’t know.
In a more general sense, the CBS poll shed additional light on the public’s attitude toward the demonstrations when it asked, “Do you think professional athletes should or should not use their position and fame to talk politics or raise issues, if they want to?” The poll gave respondents three choices: “Yes, whenever they want to,” “Yes, but only on their own time,” and “No, they should not.”
A decisive 68 percent said athletes either should get political on their own time or not at all. (The breakdown of that was 41 percent said athletes should do it on their own time, and 27 percent said they shouldn’t do it at all. Just 32 percent said athletes could get political whenever they want to.)
Given the racial dimension of the controversy, the poll broke things down further by race. Forty-six percent of blacks said athletes should get political on their own time or not at all; 64 percent of Hispanics said the same; 58 percent of other races/ ethnicities agreed; and 75 percent of whites agreed. Blacks were the only group that said, by a 54 percent majority, that athletes should get political whenever they want.
The bottom line is that in most polls small majorities oppose the national anthem protests. But in a broader sense, a much larger majority opposes athletes using the field of competition to play politics.
Why is the majority generally opposing political activity on the field larger than the majority specifically opposing the anthem protests? Just a theory here — it could be that the former is a true measure of opinion on sports protests, while the latter is associated with Trump, which means measures of opinion about the anthem protests are commingled with respondents’ opinions about the president.
Which leads to the polls’ findings about Trump. CBS asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of Donald Trump’s recent comments about football players who protest during the national anthem?” Forty-eight percent strongly or somewhat disapproved, while 38 percent strongly or somewhat approved, and 14 percent did not know.
CNN asked, “Do you think Donald Trump did the right thing or the wrong thing by criticizing athletes from the National Football League who have protested by kneeling during the national anthem?” Sixty percent said Trump did the wrong thing, while 34 percent said he did the right thing and 6 percent didn’t know. Other polls showed similarly strong disapproval of the president’s action.
What does it all mean? First, most Americans disapprove of the protests. But at the same time, most don’t want the president inserting himself into the issue. Even those Americans who support the president would still like to see him concentrate his public statements on issues like taxes, economic growth, health care, immigration, North Korea and other critical matters.
But Trump does what he does. And on the NFL protest question, if the new polls are correct, he’s on the same side as most Americans — even if most also wish he would stay out of it.