Colin Kaepernick’s decision to sit while the Star Spangled Banner playedbefore an NFL preseason game has ignited a heated debate on respecting the American flag as the latest political flavor of the week.
The 49ers quarterback drew the ire of fellow NFL players, NASCAR drivers,athletes, and citizens for his actions. The Santa Clara Police Union even threatened to boycott 49ers games over Kapernick's protests. But the Blaze’s Tomi Lahren gave a notably fiery reaction on an episode of “Final Thoughts” that aired last week.
While her ostentatious rant isn’t indicative of every conservative sentiment in America, she does represent the viewpoints of many hardline right-wingers. The excessive nature of liberal PC social justice warriors on college campuses has been relentlessly lampooned, but the responses from the extreme right to Kaepernick’s actions reflect a right-wing PC culture that isn’t widely acknowledged.
The National Anthem is a time to reflect on the American Flag and appreciate the sacrifices that many men and women of all walks of life have made to ensure every citizen can enjoy the liberties this country has to offer. If Americans truly believe the stars and stripes represent our cherished freedoms, then they should respect Kaepernick’s right to express himself.
Many may oppose his choice, but the beauty of America is we can all agree or disagree with one another. That’s the nature of the First Amendment.
But in her monologue, Lahren says if Kaepernick doesn’t like America, he should leave — another belief widely held by the Captain America conservative types. Clearly their safe space was violated. Is the choice to not participate in the National Anthem a microagression against your idea of patriotism? At least Colin gave everyone a trigger warning by announcing he will sit during every pre-game National Anthem this season during a 20-minute interview.
But if Americans care so much about patriotism, why is a man who denigrated the service of John McCain and openly disgraced a Gold Star family the Republican nominee for president?
Donald Trump built a presidential campaign based on incendiary and discriminatory rhetoric that his followers deemed was “keeping it real.” According to that logic, Americans should be content with racism and bigotry because it’s “what’s on people’s minds.” Apparently, any opposition to Trump’s statements is considered being too PC. But God forbid anyone says “happy holidays” in December, because that would be a brutal jihad on Christmas.
Hardcore right-wing conservatives pull these stunts all the time. It hasn’t even been a year since the Christian right fomented an angry backlash againstStarbucks’s decision to remove snowflakes from their coffee cups in favor of a plain red container during the holiday season. Clearly this is offensive to Christmas, because Jesus was born in the Middle East, and deserts are obviously notorious for their snowfall.
If people don’t align with conservative Christian morals and their idea of America, then the extreme right throws a temper tantrum and complains about this country’s decline into a liberal Armageddon dominated by gay hippies tossing organic granola out of their hemp handbags while tandem bicycling to their local Whole Foods.
Jon Stewart discussed extremist conservative values when he appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert: “You feel that you’re this country’s rightful owners… This country isn’t yours — you don’t own it. It never was. There is no real America. You don’t own it. You don’t own patriotism. You don’t own Christianity.”
The LGBT community can’t have equal protection against discrimination, or women can’t have the right to choose, because that offends their Christian beliefs. People can’t decide how they honor or protest America because it violates their idea of patriotism.
Our society has allowed extremists to dominate our political discussion to the point where almost every issue is made into a binary choice. You can either be Black Lives or Blue Lives Matter. You can only be a pro-business capitalist or a pro-government socialist. Nuance and reason has been thrown out the window. Instead, we only get hyper-partisan blowhards dictating which emotional knee-jerk reaction is acceptable in today’s political debate.
If Americans can unite around one commonality, it should be for a mutual disdain for extremists on both sides who prioritize demonizing the other side over solving problems.
For every liberal speech Nazi that lectures someone who calls a homeless person “homeless” instead of a “socio-economically underserved person with a negative cash inflow living in substandard housing,” there’s a bitter Christian right activist that believes an Oreo commercial featuring a cookie with rainbow frosting signals America’s descent into a fiery Hell filled with deviant sodomy.
There’s a word we can use to describe the ideology of the regressive right and left. It’s “asshole.” Both groups are filled self-righteous authoritarians who place themselves on a moral pedestal so they can micromanage other people’s lives to fit accordingly to their worldview. When they tear each other apart, it’s like watching a red apple insult a green apple for being an apple. They’re ultimately projecting their own behavior and insecurities onto each other.
Hardcore conservatives and PC liberals have a lot more in common than they think. Who says bipartisanship is dead these days?
