a referendum on the President himself.
“The most frustrating thing is that
people weren’t kneeling because they
believe police brutality is too high or
because of racial inequality,” says Nate
Boyer, a former Green Beret and NFL
long snapper whose conversations with
Kaepernick helped coax the quarter-
back to kneel rather than sit in protest.
“They took a knee because they don’t
like Donald Trump. We’re now equating
the American flag with a person—not the
300 million diverse people it’s supposed
to represent.”
It is a talent that Trump’s foes have
come to appreciate. “He does a good job
of picking his opponents,” says Terry
Sullivan, a Republican consultant who
managed Marco Rubio’s presidential
campaign. “That is his gift: he has
a unique ability to bring down the
discourse and drag down his opponents
to his level, so that their arguments
seem even more ridiculous than his.” As
another GOP strategist whose candidate
competed against Trump in the 2016
primary frames it: “We were playing on
his stage the entire campaign.”
Or to put it in football parlance:
Trump’s playbook is to turn every battle
into an away game for his opponents.
Until they figure out how to win on
Trump’s turf, each new provocation by
the President is likely to end in a victory
for the White House. —With reporting
byBEN GOLDBERGER/NEW YORK;and
PHILIP ELLIOTTandZEKE J. MILLER/
WASHINGTON □anthem, compared with just 33% who
disagreed. From that vantage, picking the
fight was a shrewd survival tactic.
For the players and the league, the goal
is simpler. “We wanted to show our fan
base that we support each other, that we
have each other’s back, and we’ll continue
to be champions for our communities,”
says Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm
Jenkins, who raised his fist before the
Sept. 24 game and has been a leader of
the protest movement.
Trump’s rhetoric also turned conser-
vative owners who support him into so-
cial activists, if fleetingly. Many knelt,
locked arms or released statements in
support of their players. Such displays
of sideline strength could buy the NFL
some goodwill among the growing seg-
ment of its fan base turned off by concerns
about the CTE crisis and the league’s han-
dling of domestic-violence cases involv-
ing its players. While those owners may
have recognized the value of the gesture,
none have been willing to risk the blow-
back of signing Kaepernick, who is widely
considered to be more talented than many
other backup quarterbacks in the league.
Even on an extraordinary Sunday, how-
ever, the NFL was far from unified: over-
all, just 12% of players knelt on Sept. 24,
according to an ESPN estimate. As his
teammates protested, Broncos defensive
end Derek Wolfe told the network that he
thought the display was disrespectful to
military veterans. “The greatest country
in the world, and you reside here,” Wolfe
said. “Why do you stay?”The divide is a reminder of how
differently people see the American
condition. It’s also notable that few, if
any, prominent white NFL players, such
as Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers or JJ Watt,
have taken a knee, though Brady called
Trump’s remarks “divisive” and all three
linked arms with teammates. Such a move
could send a powerful message to white
America that black players are fighting for
issues that matter to everyone.
“When somebody with that huge a
name uses a platform to fight for a cause, it
moves mountains,” says Miami Dolphins
safety Michael Thomas, a Stanford
graduate who knelt during the anthem
throughout the 2016 season but has not
been repeating the gesture this year.
“It just can’t be black players. If we get
more of our NFL bothers who are white,
the narrative is going to change. It’s that
simple.”
The protests, if they continue, should
spark other conversations, not only
about race, justice and inequality but
also about how to respond to a President
with a knack for choosing battles that
benefit him, no matter how divisive. As
has often been the case, Trump turned a
protest with specific goals—from racial
equality to criminal-justice reform—into△
NFL owners joined with their
teams, from left: Shahid Khan of the
Jacksonville Jaguars; Jerry Jones of the
Dallas Cowboys; Daniel Snyder of the
Washington RedskinsFROM LEFT: RICK WILSON—AP; MATT YORK—AP/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; PATRICK SMITH—GETTY IMAGES