AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Colin Kaepernick and Donald Trump, 10 years after “the kneel”

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, then the starting quarterback for the NFL’s San Francisco 49’ers, bravely knelt on the sidelines during the playing of the U.S. national anthem.

It was a silent protest focused on bringing attention to the plague of unarmed black men getting killed by the police.

Soon after Kaepernick knelt, dozens of players around the NFL were kneeling before the game, and the protest spilled over into other pro sports.

It’s been a decade since Kaepernick’s courageous protest brought a lot of attention to the growing number of black men getting killed by police. Ten years later, that silent, peaceful protest has exposed the rot in the conservative movement.

When Kaepernick and others protested, they were attacked primarily for being against the police. Remember – and this is key – that not one person was killed or injured in any of those non-violent kneeling protests.

Fast forward to January 6th, 2021 when angry right-wingers stormed the U.S. capital, hoping to overturn the election Trump lost, with some actively to hang Vice-President Pence.

Trump, proving for the 238th time that he is the stupidest president in American history, claimed that the January 6th insurrectionists were ‘warriors’ and ‘patriots.’ (Since when is beating up cops patriotic?)

On that fateful day, 141 police officers were seriously injured. As a result of the January 6th insurrection, five people died.

When Trump, a convicted criminal himself, got back into the White House, one of his first official acts was to pardon every single person – 100% of them – that was involved in the vicious attacks on the Capitol, including every violent rioter that injured police officers.

They sprayed cops with pepper spray, bashed them over the head with flag poles and fire extinguishers, kicked them, and stomped them on their way to hurt more police officers.

Remember that Trump said he “loved” the people viciously attacking police officers.

Here’s how that Trump pardon of people beating up cops, contrasted to Kaepernick’s kneeling protest, reveals the core decay in conservatism.

Trump claims to be on the side of law enforcement in one side of his mouth, but then with the other side he pardoned everyone who seriously hurt a cop.

It bears repeating that when Colin Kaepernick knelt on the sidelines to draw attention to police murdering African Americans, no one was injured or killed, no furniture was broken, no property was damaged and no feces were smeared on office walls (as happened on January 6th).

Kaepernick’s was a simple, effective, non-violent protest.

That conservatives were and are okay with Trump pardoning people who seriously hurt 141 police officers, but apoplectic about Kaepernick silently kneeling during the national anthem, reveals a staggering level of hypocrisy and a double moral standard in conservatism that is unfathomable.

According to Trump and his supporters, violently attacking police officers was perfectly okay. So okay he sprang all of them from jail.

But non-violently kneeling at the beginning of a football game? That is not acceptable to the conservative worldview.

The way Trump treated the January 6th rioters reveals the festering rot in conservatism: small ‘c’ conservatives can’t claim to be supporters of law enforcement while also applauding Trump for pardoning rioters who beat up over a hundred and forty police officers. That doesn’t make any rational sense.

Kaepernick was pushed out of the NFL as a result of his silent, peaceful protest. He paid dearly for drawing attention to his black brothers getting killed by police officers.

He has a new book out, appropriately called “The Perilous Fight.”

Kaepernick’s political activism cost him is career in pro football, but he told The Guardian he would do it all over again.

“Absolutely,” he says. “The work still needs to be done…I will continue to protest because, quite literally, people’s lives are at stake.”

Trump gave up whatever minuscule threads were left of his legacy for pardoning violent felons who violently attacked police officers on January 6th. Kaepernick gave up his NFL career fighting for the lives of his fellow black men in America.

History will regard one as a genuine hero and the other as a deranged figure completely untethered to reality.