The choice between kneeling and winning

The athletes in America are right — that they shouldn’t apologise for anything. But they ought to be more effective

hen a young organiser named John Lewis spoke at the March on Washington in August 1963, he delivered a scorching rebuke of racism and its “political, economic and social exploitation.” But Lewis also did something else: He aligned his side, the civil rights movement, with the symbols and ideals of America.

The marchers would not rest, he said from the Lincoln Memorial steps, “until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete.”

It was a deliberate strategy. Even as the movement’s leaders raged, most justifiably, against their country’s oppression of them — and even as their enemies called them traitors — they cast themselves as patriots, the historian Simon Hall has noted. They urged the country to live up to its founding creed. They knew that by doing so, they gave themselves the best chance to win their fight.

In one of his first prominent speeches, during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of “the glory of America, with all its faults”. At the March on Washington, King described not just a dream but “a dream deeply rooted in the American dream”. Before finishing, he recited the first seven lines of My Country, ‘Tis of Thee, ending with “Let freedom ring!”

A year-and-a-half later, marchers from Selma to Montgomery carried American flags. Segregationist hecklers along the route held up Confederate flags. Within six months, Lyndon Johnson had signed the Voting Rights Act.

Symbols matter in politics. They often matter more than the detailed arguments that opposing sides make. Symbols are a shortcut that help persuadable outsiders figure out where to line up. The professional athletes doing political battle with United States President Donald Trump are heirs to the civil-rights movement. They are protesting government-sanctioned violence against African-Americans. Risking popularity for principle, they have shown a courage frequently lacking among the affluent and famous.

From a moral standpoint, this issue is clear. The athletes are right — and have every right to protest as they have. Trump is wrong, about the scourge of police violence and about freedom of speech. But righteousness does not automatically bring effectiveness. And as someone who cheers when Stephen Curry or Von Miller speaks out and makes the president look small, I’ve reluctantly become convinced that many athletes are making a tactical mistake.

Yes, the athletes and their allies can make nuanced, genuine arguments about why kneeling during the national anthem is not meant as a rebuke to the entire country. Liberals have rallied to their side, almost uniformly. I have the same instinct.

A bigger question

Winning over blue America, however, is a pretty modest goal. The kneeling argument needlessly alienates persuadable people, and it’s one that the athletes don’t need. Almost 70 per cent of Americans get that the protests are directed at police violence or Trump and not the flag, according to a YouGov/ HuffPost poll. Yet, only 36 per cent consider the kneeling protest to be “appropriate”. Why? Because most Americans respect the country’s symbols and because standing is a simple sign of respect. You stand to greet someone.

Beyond the athletes, there is a bigger question: Do Trump’s opponents want to oppose him in ways that are merely just and satisfying? Or do they want to beat him? “You can’t get angry,” as the longtime activist Vernon Jordan has said, describing a different civil-rights battle, in the 1950s. “You have to get smart.” Getting smart means nominating progressive candidates who can win, even if they aren’t progressive on every issue. Getting smart means delaying internal fights (like single-payer health care) and unifying against Trump’s agenda (as Democrats in Congress have). Getting smart means understanding, as civil-rights leaders did, that American symbols are a worthy ally.

The athletes shouldn’t apologise for anything. Those who continue to kneel, and draw ire, deserve support. But the smart move now is not to expand a tactic that Trump loves as a foil. It’s to shift towards protests that don’t need a counterintuitive and distracting defence, while he gets to bleat on about “America first”. The protests can still be aggressive — like the “I can’t breathe” shirts in the NBA, and much more. Trump, of course, will blast any protest as some version of uppity. But so what? The target audience are the many Americans open to opposing police violence and a bullying president — but uncomfortable with a gesture that seems to oppose America itself.

The athletes, after all, are the true patriots in America — defending life, liberty and equality under the law. They’re also intensely competitive people. They are familiar with the idea of finding a way to win. David Leonhardt is an American journalist and columnist.

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