The Nike ad with Colin Kaepernick and the parody version with Trump.

This is the real ad...



... which almost seems as if it were made to set up this hilarious parody:



I think the parody works better than the original, because in the original, the viewer is called to greatness at the highest level. You're supposed to be striving to be the very best in the world. Like: if you play tennis, you ought to be Serena Williams. That's extreme fantasy. But if you re-envision the whole spiel as a message to Trump, well, he did it, and we're only called to realize that he did. Now, what was crazy, is really true.

Here's the text of the ad, which makes little sense addressing the "you" who's an ordinary person sitting around watching a shoe ad, and snaps into crystalline sense when the "you" is Trump:

"The rule was interpreted correctly, but the rule is bad."

"There are plenty of problems with the NFL right now, but many of them are either intractable or downright unfixable. The catch rule is not one of them. The NFL has to fix it, and that might require a totally radical sort of solution. Let's make arguments for three very different types of changes to the much-hated catch rule...."

From "Three options to fix the NFL's catch rule" (ESPN), about this play in last nights Patriots/Steelers game.

ADDED: I guess if I've got a post with the words "There are plenty of problems with the NFL right now," I need to drop a link to "Sources: Jerry Richardson, Panthers Have Made Multiple Confidential Payouts for Workplace Misconduct, Including Sexual Harassment and Use of a Racial Slur" (Sports Illustrated) and "Diddy wants to buy the Panthers and sign Colin Kaepernick" (WaPo).

Drudge attributes superhuman powers to Trump.

Too mean? How hurt is she? Not that hurt:

Looks like i have an acute facet (spinal joint) dysfunction. I got compressed on the 6th gate and my back seized up. Rested and had a lot of therapy tonight. We will see how I feel tomorrow and then decide if I will race....

What did she say about Trump? Asked if she'd do the traditional visit to the White House after the Olympic, she'd said "absolutely not." Later, she clarified: "I was asked my opinion and I gave it. I mean, it's not necessarily my place to be sticking my nose in politics, but as an athlete I do have a voice." She also said that at the Olympics she would "represent the people of the United States, not the president." She didn't mention Trump, but she did say she admired Colin Kaepernick, which the linked article (to Fox News) connects to Trump, in that Trump has tweeted about Kaepernick. But Kaepernick's protest wasn't about Trump. If I remember correctly, Kaepernick protest is about race and the police (something we don't hear much about anymore).

Just when liberal media was gearing up to destroy football over all the brain damage, Trump calls for a boycott of football over the National Anthem protests.

Here was the devastating NYT story 3 days ago: "Aaron Hernandez Had Severe C.T.E. When He Died at Age 27":

Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end and a convicted murderer, was 27 when he committed suicide in April. Yet a posthumous examination of his brain showed he had such a severe form of the degenerative brain disease C.T.E. that the damage was akin to that of players well into their 60s.

It was, a lawyer for his family said, in announcing the findings on Thursday, “the most severe case they had ever seen in someone of Aaron’s age.”

C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, has been found in more than 100 former N.F.L. players, some of whom committed suicide, according to researchers at Boston University.

Well, that's it, I said to myself. That's the end of football. How can we sit back and enjoy watching activities that we know are wrecking the players' brain?

Here's the top-rated "NYT Pick" comment there:

I'm a diehard football fan, but the moment is rapidly approaching when I'll stop watching. The Kaepernick situation. The head injuries. The continued blind eye and mishandling of domestic violence cases. Plus, the Giants are 0-2 with no signs of a new left tackle anywhere in sight. I'll miss the ritual of the whole thing most of all (I love spending Sundays with my wife and freinds-eating nachos, drinking beer and watching endless truck commercials), but I think football is something that future generations will look back on with much the same feeling of shock and mild disgust that we feel when contemplating Roman gladiators.

This is a blunt, loud call to stop watching. You're a bad person if — knowing what you know now — you continue to watch football. This isn't a new message. Rush Limbaugh has been saying for years that this issue has already killed football, and it's only a matter of time. But this news about Hernandez was a devastatingly hard hit. Here's how it looked in the middle of the NYT front page last Friday:



Football was down. The end. We, the good people who read the NYT, must say no to football. What is known cannot become unknown except by willful, immoral forgetting. No decent person can take pleasure in football. No fit parent can allow a child to take up the game. The era of American football is over. Bury it. We can end the misery through the simple and necessary refusal to watch anymore. Say no, America... or hey, wait a minute. Here's that nasty President of the United States and he's calling for a boycott of football...

If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017

Now, what?! If you really hate brain damage, you might say, great. We can successfully destroy football now, because we've got a powerful second reason for football-watchers to end their support for the evil, destructive game. The people who are least receptive to the brain-damage problem might be the most likely to get into the strict discipline of firing players for "disrespecting our Flag & Country." Look at that capitalization, from the man who said "I love the poorly educated." He knows his audience. They don't read The New York Times. They're not going to let complicated news stories about CTE stop them from watching football. Can they even say chronic traumatic encephalopathy? But they sure get the prod from the Prez about Flag & Country.

Do you ally with your enemy against a common enemy? But Trump isn't the enemy of all football. The National Anthem protests have been hurting football. The ratings have been declining badly, seemingly because of those protests. Trump may be trying to revive football, by demonstrating the strength of the support — among the real fans — for a harsh policy that would end the protests and bring the fans back. But it seems unlikely that football management will adopt that approach, as Trump must know, and so I imagine he's thinking that he's putting his personal stamp on the protest problem. He told management what it needed to do: Fire the protesters. They didn't do it, and the decline of football continued. He told them. He showed them how to save football, and they wouldn't do it, because they don't respect their own fans. They listened to the elite media that has no respect for the people who really watch football (and who vote for Trump).

So, watch the liberal media endeavor to save football from bad old President Trump. He's a racist. This is his racism once again, stirring up the stupid people who voted for him. Here's the NYT today:

The tweet suggested that the president, who used an expletive on Friday night to refer to players who kneel or sit in protest during the anthem — a practice that took hold last season among some African-American players after Colin Kaepernick, the now-former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, did so to protest racial and social injustice — is bent on deepening a bitter culture-war fight with the N.F.L.

It is a highly charged debate, with unmistakable racial undertones, pitting advocates of free speech who argue that professional athletes should have a right to use their positions to call attention to social issues against those who contend that refusing to honor the anthem disrespects the military and the nation, and that sports is no place for such displays.

Let the brain damage continue. We've got a culture war to fight.

"Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team. Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn!"

Tweets Trump.

That's the basketball + Trump news. In football + Trump news, there's: "NFL Stars Erupt In Anger Over Donald Trump’s ‘Son Of A Bitch’ Speech":

During what was supposed to be a stump speech for Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), Trump drifted away from campaigning to ask members of the crowd if they’d “love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he’s fired?’”

Here's the video:



ADDED: On a fashion note, what's up with the peppermint candy necktie?

"To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous, instead of a compulsory routine..."

"... is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."

Wrote Justice Jackson in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme Court case that that recognized a free-speech right of public schoolchildren to resist compulsion to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. That's quoted by Jeffrey Toobin in a New Yorker article about Colin Kaepernick's refusal to show the customary respect of standing during the National Anthem as it is played before professional football games.

Toobin acknowledges that Barnette is about a legal rights that can only be asserted against the government. He doesn't mention that compulsion to recite a pledge is very different from compulsion to show respect while somebody else is saying/singing words that are not even a pledge. And he doesn't mention that Kaepernick chose to join a team, while the children in Barnette were compelled to go to school. And children compelled to go to school are required to follow dictated behavior standards while they are taught material that may be designed to instill patriotism or other political dogma that they might not believe.

And, most importantly, Kaepernick is not being compelled to stand during the national anthem. He sits or takes the knee and we all get to see that. He's got his freedom of expression. He's just being criticized for what he is expressing. There was absolutely nothing in Barnette that saved the schoolchildren from being regarded as bad and unpatriotic for failing to say the pledge.

The criticism too is free speech.

"Colin Kaepernick is great/Cops are pigs, cops are pigs/Wait, someone just took my stuff, I need to call the cops..."

A national anthem parody:

Don’t sit this one out! #SouthPark returns this Wednesday on @ComedyCentral with 10 all-new episodes! #mnf pic.twitter.com/EqEKquuf0g

— South Park (@SouthPark) September 13, 2016

You can watch the whole episode here on Wednesday.

"Trump said something sarcastic about Kaepernick finding a country that he likes better."

"Persuasion-wise, the stronger play was to support Kaepernick’s right to free speech and invite him to be part of the solution, as I just did."

Says Scott Adams... who managed, without actually saying it, to create the idea in my mind — I know he's a hypnotist — that "The Star-Spangled Banner" will soon be widely regarded as racist and no longer acceptable as the national anthem. And that's before I read the CNN article he linked to: "Slavery and the national anthem: The surprising history behind Colin Kaepernick's protest."

And even though I personally reject the argument that Kaepernick needs to love America because it's better than the alternatives — it goes against my aphorism "Better than nothing is a high standard"* — I think Kaepernick's forefronting of the general abstraction of patriotism helps Trump.

I can imagine a psychological study that divides undecided American voters into 3 groups. Group 1 watches some well-crafted propaganda designed to inspire love for America. Group 2 watches a serious exploration of the pros and cons of whether Americans should love America. And Group 3 watches something — no more or less entertaining — that has nothing to do with patriotism. I'm guessing Group 2 would lean more toward Trump than Group 3.
___________________________

* Yes, you have to live somewhere, but you don't have to love it. Back in the 60s, those who didn't like the various anti-war and other protests had a slogan "America — love it or leave it." It was kind of like the old parental demand — on presentation of some unappetizing food — "You'll eat it and you'll like it." Why must I also like it? And how can I be ordered to like it? More sensible parents — like mine — would just say: "That's what's for dinner." They didn't prod me to go see if I could go get dinner at someone else's house and taunt me with predictions that I wouldn't even like it. This is dinner. This is what we're having. You need to eat. But you can have your own thoughts about it and dislike it even as you use it to fulfill your needs.

IN THE COMMENTS: Balfegor said something I meant to make you think:

I wouldn't be surprised if Group 2 actually leaned more towards Trump than Group 1 too . . . sort of like what we saw with Obama, Obama benefited when race was made salient in voters' minds (e.g. by the media and his other proxies), but less so when voters were beaten about the head about racism (cf. his late fade against Clinton II back in the 2008 primary). However well-crafted, propaganda that articulates a clear point of view can provoke a counter-reaction. That said, I suppose that means it just wasn't well-crafted enough.

What made me say "Oh! Interesting" in this new Trump ad.

"'Two Americas: Economy' is a 30-second spot that will run in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, Virginia and Colorado," says Politico pointing at this new Trump ad:



Did you catch what struck me? Let me clip it for you:



I'm thinking about Colin Kaepernick and the sudden intrusion of an old simmering issue: Why should black people love America?