A lesson in patriotism
It’s astounding how often critics will say of Donald Trump after he reads a speech from a teleprompter that he is finally acting “presidential,” as if the recitation of talking points is all the office requires or could even begin to undo the extensive damage the president causes whenever he behaves like himself.
There is nothing presidential, for instance, about the man who delivered a cruel and unhinged 80-minute rant at a political event in Alabama last week. Jumping from topic to topic in a symphony of ever-louder dog-whistles, Trump eventually focused his ire on professional football players and, in particular, those who have taken a knee during the national anthem to protest racist police practices.
Trump asked what “people like yourselves” — i.e. his mainly white audience — think of “those people” — i.e. the protesting black football players — and called on NFL team owners to fire “those sons of bitches.” He then went on to decry new rules that seek to mitigate the traumatic brain damage the game has been shown to cause its players, claiming “they’re ruining the game.”
In Trump’s mean-spirited world, football players should do whatever it takes to entertain us, even if it costs them their health or even their lives. In his upside-down understanding, athletes who kneel during the national anthem in protest of racism are all “sons of bitches,” whereas some among the Nazis who marched in Charlottesville are “very fine people.” (On Monday, Trump insisted that his position has nothing to do with race, but whether or not he understands why, that’s simply not true.)
As he has shown again and again in his more extemporaneous moments, left to his own devices the president will always attempt to divide and inflame. Whether this is a political strategy, an ideological mission or some sort of narcissistic indulgence, the effect is the same: he is feeding divisions that threaten to cause great individual harm and tear his country apart.
The sports world, for its part, seems largely galvanized against Trump’s message of hate. On Sunday, many owners and athletes spoke out. Twenty-seven players from the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens took a knee during the national anthem. Many others, including the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League, linked arms in a show of solidarity and protest.
Steph Curry, the Golden State Warriors sharpshooter, said he would prefer that his championship basketball team decline Trump’s invitation to celebrate at the White House. Not so presidential, the president rescinded the invitation.
Only the Pittsburgh Penguins, who amid the uproar announced they would attend a celebration of their Stanley Cup victory at the White House, seemed eager to be complicit in Trump’s culture war.
If there is an upside to all of this, it’s that Trump has unwittingly clarified for many that to protest is not only a right guaranteed by the American Constitution, but also, at its best, itself a form of patriotism. Trump’s presidency is an object lesson that a national project, however great, is never finished and never safe from the threat of internal metastasis. Its symbols can be wielded in pride or, just as usefully, in shame, as a reminder of how much work must be done to fulfil the country’s promise.
But just as Trump conflates America’s symbols with its values, he conflates the office of the presidency with its holder, however unpresidential. “Going to the White House is considered a great honor,” Trump tweeted at Curry. But Curry’s on-court rival LeBron James was getting at something important in his tweeted rebuttal: “It was an honor to visit the White House until you showed up!”
James understands that the White House is, at least in part, what the president makes it. And all athletes linking arms or taking a knee during the anthem seem to understand that their country is not only its symbols, but the principles and aspirations that underpin them, which Trump, whatever his reasons, seems so ready to make small.
Their country is not only its symbols, but the principles and aspirations that underpin them