L.T. Fan
I'm Easy If You Are
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He is your president too. Even if it chafes your hind end.
President Trump Thread...
- Thread starter Angrymesscan
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BipolarFuk
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Keeping up national anthem controversy, Trump touts NASCAR's patriotism
Keeping up national anthem controversy, Trump touts NASCAR's patriotism
Trump finds a sport to support -- NASCAR
President Donald Trump is not putting to rest this weekend's uproar over professional football players' protests during the national anthem, declaring early Monday that a rival sports franchise was more suitably patriotic.
"So proud of NASCAR and its supporters and fans," Trump wrote on Twitter at 7:25 a.m. ET. "They won't put up with disrespecting our Country or our Flag - they said it loud and clear!"
He went on to write eight minutes later: "Many people booed the players who kneeled yesterday (which was a small percentage of total). These are fans who demand respect for our Flag!" He later tweeted "#StandForOurAnthem" and retweeted a user who cited for NFL player Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 while serving with the Army Rangers.
The message praising America's foremost auto racing circuit came after widespread demonstrations at football games over the weekend, prompted by Trump's repeated calls to fire players who kneel during the national anthem. Several NASCAR team owners said over the weekend they wouldn't tolerate a similar movement in their sport.
The rancor began Friday evening, when Trump used an expletive to describe players who took part in protesting the anthem during a campaign rally in Alabama. He threw gasoline on the flames Saturday and Sunday, writing on Twitter that the league was suffering a decline in viewership because of the political protests.
His remarks struck many as stoking racial resentments because the players he criticized were black and their protests were meant to highlight racial injustice. But Trump told reporters his objections had nothing to do with race.
Departing New Jersey, where he had spent the weekend at this Bedminster golf club, Trump said his comments had "nothing to do with race or anything else — this has to do with respect for our country and respect for our flag."
He sought to underscore that point Monday morning, writing on Twitter: "The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!"
But his praise of NASCAR will do little to quiet the suggestion that Trump is, at least implicitly, fueling a racial issue. While many of the most prominent players in the NFL and the NBA are black, auto racing has long been viewed as the whitest of professional American sports. Even as other leagues -- like those for golf and tennis -- have seen black athletes rise to stardom, NASCAR has remained dominated by white drivers.
When he raced in NASCAR's top national series this summer, Darrell "Bubba" Wallace Jr. became the first black driver to compete at that level since 2006. He was only the fourth black driver to compete at that level for NASCAR since 1961.
For decades it was not uncommon to see the Confederate flag waved at NASCAR tracks, though the sport's governing body took steps in 2015 to rid its events of the symbol.
Television ratings have been declining for NASCAR over the past decade, as they have for the NFL.
Keeping up national anthem controversy, Trump touts NASCAR's patriotism
Trump finds a sport to support -- NASCAR
President Donald Trump is not putting to rest this weekend's uproar over professional football players' protests during the national anthem, declaring early Monday that a rival sports franchise was more suitably patriotic.
"So proud of NASCAR and its supporters and fans," Trump wrote on Twitter at 7:25 a.m. ET. "They won't put up with disrespecting our Country or our Flag - they said it loud and clear!"
He went on to write eight minutes later: "Many people booed the players who kneeled yesterday (which was a small percentage of total). These are fans who demand respect for our Flag!" He later tweeted "#StandForOurAnthem" and retweeted a user who cited for NFL player Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 while serving with the Army Rangers.
The message praising America's foremost auto racing circuit came after widespread demonstrations at football games over the weekend, prompted by Trump's repeated calls to fire players who kneel during the national anthem. Several NASCAR team owners said over the weekend they wouldn't tolerate a similar movement in their sport.
The rancor began Friday evening, when Trump used an expletive to describe players who took part in protesting the anthem during a campaign rally in Alabama. He threw gasoline on the flames Saturday and Sunday, writing on Twitter that the league was suffering a decline in viewership because of the political protests.
His remarks struck many as stoking racial resentments because the players he criticized were black and their protests were meant to highlight racial injustice. But Trump told reporters his objections had nothing to do with race.
Departing New Jersey, where he had spent the weekend at this Bedminster golf club, Trump said his comments had "nothing to do with race or anything else — this has to do with respect for our country and respect for our flag."
He sought to underscore that point Monday morning, writing on Twitter: "The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!"
But his praise of NASCAR will do little to quiet the suggestion that Trump is, at least implicitly, fueling a racial issue. While many of the most prominent players in the NFL and the NBA are black, auto racing has long been viewed as the whitest of professional American sports. Even as other leagues -- like those for golf and tennis -- have seen black athletes rise to stardom, NASCAR has remained dominated by white drivers.
When he raced in NASCAR's top national series this summer, Darrell "Bubba" Wallace Jr. became the first black driver to compete at that level since 2006. He was only the fourth black driver to compete at that level for NASCAR since 1961.
For decades it was not uncommon to see the Confederate flag waved at NASCAR tracks, though the sport's governing body took steps in 2015 to rid its events of the symbol.
Television ratings have been declining for NASCAR over the past decade, as they have for the NFL.
BipolarFuk
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Texas Ace
I'll Never Dream Again
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Don't you love how he tells Obama that there are more important things he can do with his time but then spends far more time on the same NFL that he criticized Obama for?
But what else would one expect from that orange buffoon?
BipolarFuk
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Trump's NFL and Puerto Rico tweets prove his goal is to divide, not unite the country
Trump's NFL and Puerto Rico tweets prove his goal is to divide, not unite the country
Before 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, President Trump had tapped out three tweets blasting the NFL.
"Ratings for NFL football are way down except before game starts, when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected!," he said in one. "The booing at the NFL football game last night, when the entire Dallas team dropped to its knees, was loudest I have ever heard," he wrote in another. "Great anger."
Those tweets followed on Trump's comments at a meeting with conservative leaders at the White House on Monday in which he expressed satisfaction with the last five days of tweets, protests and debate over what the National Anthem actually means -- and who it's for.
"It's really caught on. It's really caught on," Trump reportedly told the assembled conservatives. "I said what millions of Americans were thinking."
Ratings. Booing. Great anger. Really caught on.
Trump's decision to start this feud with NFL players -- and professional athletes more broadly -- is a telling window into how he views (and uses) the power of the presidency: To divide, not to unite. To forever focus on scoring political points, to please and placate the political base that helped elect him to the White House. To always, always, always look for where we disagree -- and where those disagreements can be exploited for his own gain.
That is, at root, a fundamental departure from the way that previous presidents have operated.
Every man to hold the White House prior to Trump seemed to have an innate grasp of the power of the presidency and how to use it. Think of the presidency like a lighthouse. Anywhere a president chooses to shine that light will be illuminated. It will drive attention to it and media coverage of it. The bully pulpit may not be as bully-ish as it once was, but when the president prioritizes an issue, it becomes an issue that people and the press can't ignore.
For most presidents, that means shining a light on our common humanity -- whether it's helping bind the country together after a terrorist attack or a natural disaster or the more mundane daily work of reminding people that much more unites us than divides us.
Trump has inverted that. He seems bent on reminding us on what divides us rather than what unites us.
In the midst of what the governor of Puerto Rico has said is a crisis of epic proportions caused by Hurricane Maria, Trump has stayed largely silent on the matter -- breaking that silence only to tweet about the country's "broken infrastructure & massive debt."
Instead of rallying the country behind the 3.4 million American citizens who live in Puerto Rico, Trump has instead sent more than a dozen tweets about the NFL and the alleged lack of patriotism demonstrated by players who kneel or sit during the National Anthem.
(Worth noting here: The origin of the anthem protests was the violence against black men by police officers. It had -- and has -- absolutely nothing to do with dishonoring our military or the flag.)
Why? Because Trump has a finely-tuned ear for what will resonate with his political base. And casting himself as the voice of the people against rich, entitled and primarily black athletes -- yes, of course, race is tied up in this -- is a strong place to be for some not-small element of his base.
Whether he wants to admit it to himself or not, Trump is purposely playing on lingering racial resentment and animus in the country to remind people of what divides us. And he is doing so because he knows it will work.
It's the same reason he suggested he saw Muslims celebrating on New Jersey rooftops on September 11, 2001. And the same reason he failed to condemn white supremacist David Duke for days during the campaign. And why he sought to cast the white supremacist protests in Charlottesville as the result of violent people "on many sides."
Trump ran as a divider, not a uniter. He won that way -- offering safe harbor for people who had long resented politicians who told them they had to accept those who didn't look like them, sound like them or think like them.
Divisiveness works in politics -- especially in a fractured media environment in which you can spend your life never being confronted with a reasonable argument that clashes with your worldview and in a self-sorted America in which we live, work and play around only people who agree with us on, well, everything.
Casting people who disagree with you as "other" -- and ensuring "other" = bad -- made for a winning political strategy for Trump. But, winning isn't an end in and of itself. Or any sort of legacy.
The key -- for Trump and for any other winners out there -- is what you do once you grab the brass ring. Past presidents understood that the campaign was one thing and governing was another. That being president bestowed on you the responsibility of always trying to take the high road, always doing the right thing for the country rather than the best thing for your party or yourself.
Trump has flipped that approach on its head. He does what's good for him first, then what he believes to be good for the GOP and, finally, what's good for the country.
That's what "modern day presidential" means to Trump. And it's what is driving divisions in this country to dangerous levels.
Trump's NFL and Puerto Rico tweets prove his goal is to divide, not unite the country
Before 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, President Trump had tapped out three tweets blasting the NFL.
"Ratings for NFL football are way down except before game starts, when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected!," he said in one. "The booing at the NFL football game last night, when the entire Dallas team dropped to its knees, was loudest I have ever heard," he wrote in another. "Great anger."
Those tweets followed on Trump's comments at a meeting with conservative leaders at the White House on Monday in which he expressed satisfaction with the last five days of tweets, protests and debate over what the National Anthem actually means -- and who it's for.
"It's really caught on. It's really caught on," Trump reportedly told the assembled conservatives. "I said what millions of Americans were thinking."
Ratings. Booing. Great anger. Really caught on.
Trump's decision to start this feud with NFL players -- and professional athletes more broadly -- is a telling window into how he views (and uses) the power of the presidency: To divide, not to unite. To forever focus on scoring political points, to please and placate the political base that helped elect him to the White House. To always, always, always look for where we disagree -- and where those disagreements can be exploited for his own gain.
That is, at root, a fundamental departure from the way that previous presidents have operated.
Every man to hold the White House prior to Trump seemed to have an innate grasp of the power of the presidency and how to use it. Think of the presidency like a lighthouse. Anywhere a president chooses to shine that light will be illuminated. It will drive attention to it and media coverage of it. The bully pulpit may not be as bully-ish as it once was, but when the president prioritizes an issue, it becomes an issue that people and the press can't ignore.
For most presidents, that means shining a light on our common humanity -- whether it's helping bind the country together after a terrorist attack or a natural disaster or the more mundane daily work of reminding people that much more unites us than divides us.
Trump has inverted that. He seems bent on reminding us on what divides us rather than what unites us.
In the midst of what the governor of Puerto Rico has said is a crisis of epic proportions caused by Hurricane Maria, Trump has stayed largely silent on the matter -- breaking that silence only to tweet about the country's "broken infrastructure & massive debt."
Instead of rallying the country behind the 3.4 million American citizens who live in Puerto Rico, Trump has instead sent more than a dozen tweets about the NFL and the alleged lack of patriotism demonstrated by players who kneel or sit during the National Anthem.
(Worth noting here: The origin of the anthem protests was the violence against black men by police officers. It had -- and has -- absolutely nothing to do with dishonoring our military or the flag.)
Why? Because Trump has a finely-tuned ear for what will resonate with his political base. And casting himself as the voice of the people against rich, entitled and primarily black athletes -- yes, of course, race is tied up in this -- is a strong place to be for some not-small element of his base.
Whether he wants to admit it to himself or not, Trump is purposely playing on lingering racial resentment and animus in the country to remind people of what divides us. And he is doing so because he knows it will work.
It's the same reason he suggested he saw Muslims celebrating on New Jersey rooftops on September 11, 2001. And the same reason he failed to condemn white supremacist David Duke for days during the campaign. And why he sought to cast the white supremacist protests in Charlottesville as the result of violent people "on many sides."
Trump ran as a divider, not a uniter. He won that way -- offering safe harbor for people who had long resented politicians who told them they had to accept those who didn't look like them, sound like them or think like them.
Divisiveness works in politics -- especially in a fractured media environment in which you can spend your life never being confronted with a reasonable argument that clashes with your worldview and in a self-sorted America in which we live, work and play around only people who agree with us on, well, everything.
Casting people who disagree with you as "other" -- and ensuring "other" = bad -- made for a winning political strategy for Trump. But, winning isn't an end in and of itself. Or any sort of legacy.
The key -- for Trump and for any other winners out there -- is what you do once you grab the brass ring. Past presidents understood that the campaign was one thing and governing was another. That being president bestowed on you the responsibility of always trying to take the high road, always doing the right thing for the country rather than the best thing for your party or yourself.
Trump has flipped that approach on its head. He does what's good for him first, then what he believes to be good for the GOP and, finally, what's good for the country.
That's what "modern day presidential" means to Trump. And it's what is driving divisions in this country to dangerous levels.
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You might wanna try a semicolon next time.
midswat
... soon
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You might wanna take a lap.
data
Forbes #1
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Trump's unifying and galvanizing the real Americans while weeding out the ones not good for this country. On a football team or successful business, you don't salvage the troublemaker or the bad apple, you cut them and move on. Would the Cowboys have won Super Bowls if Jimmy had sympathy for players with asthma?
Get rid of the havens for bad apples - can't afford healthcare, abortion centers, illegal criminals, those that won't even stand for the national anthem.
Article says that Trump is failing as POTUS because he's a divider, not unifier. When did POTUS become a unifier? I'll take a less-populous, stronger and divided country over a weaker, unified one.
After 8 years of Obama, Clinton and W each, there's a lot of flotsam in this country. They've been allowed to stay and weigh down the progress of productive Americans. Good Americans are carrying too much weight and it's hard to walk. Trump is crass, but it doesn't make his point less important.
Sometimes making the popular choice isn't the right choice and Trump has been willing & able to take tomatoes-on-stage and continue messaging. Predecessors have been too chickenshit and our country has suffered.
Get rid of the havens for bad apples - can't afford healthcare, abortion centers, illegal criminals, those that won't even stand for the national anthem.
Article says that Trump is failing as POTUS because he's a divider, not unifier. When did POTUS become a unifier? I'll take a less-populous, stronger and divided country over a weaker, unified one.
After 8 years of Obama, Clinton and W each, there's a lot of flotsam in this country. They've been allowed to stay and weigh down the progress of productive Americans. Good Americans are carrying too much weight and it's hard to walk. Trump is crass, but it doesn't make his point less important.
Sometimes making the popular choice isn't the right choice and Trump has been willing & able to take tomatoes-on-stage and continue messaging. Predecessors have been too chickenshit and our country has suffered.
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There is tons of truth in this post. Major props.
L.T. Fan
I'm Easy If You Are
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Very well stated. Someone sees that there is a larger ideology involved here. That being the country is the number one priority and there are considerations over and above the short sighted goals of those of any cause who would sacrifice national priorities over self serving and dividing causes. Inequities must be addressed with lawful and fair minded systems. Props.
Angrymesscan
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Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
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And, keep out those that might hurt our country. It's a different time.
NoDak
Hotlinking' sonofabitch
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Maybe if you post this in a 3rd thread, somebody might care.
Angrymesscan
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"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."
Smitty
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This is the second time you've posted this.
Do you think a hundred plus year old marketing poem is somehow either relevant or binding on policy today?
Yes, the United States may be well served by a relatively friendly immigration policy -- provided that, as they did in that era, they are willing to work hard and assimilate within a few generations, and not upset or disregard the rule of law.
That does not mean that it should be open borders without rules or that we need to relinquish the reasonable request that immigrants respect our customs first, while still having the right to maintain their own.
Smitty
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I'm not sure pdom isn't trolling.
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My guess is no.
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