Donald Trump is to football what, well, Donald Trump is: out of his depth.
He put that on display this week when he un-invited the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles to the White House, a once-annual tradition for champions in professional football, basketball and baseball.
In depositions from NFL owners obtained by the Wall Street Journal last week, as part of a grievance case filed by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones testified the president told him in regard to the issue: “You can’t win this one.”
“This is a very winning, strong issue for me,” Jones recalled Trump saying. “Tell everybody, you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.” Like a Super Bowl-winning coach, I suppose.
But is this the hoist he expects? Certainly, Trump has managed to turn the national anthem into a political atom-splitter. While kneeling for the anthem is actually a protest of police conduct, the administration has Frankensteined it into a protest of patriotism.
Consider the wording from the bone-spurs-in-chief: “The Philadelphia Eagles Football Team was invited to the White House. Unfortunately, only a small number of players decided to come, and we canceled the event. Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling. Sorry!”
To Trump’s credit, he spelled ‘canceled’ correctly (though I would pay money to learn his capitalization code: Locker Room?). And his followers, as fervent as holy rollers, will amen the ‘I dumped him, he didn’t dump me’ stratagem.
But, as with all Trump’s words, a few need parsing and correcting. First, not a single Eagle took a knee or stood in the lOCKER rOOM for the anthem last year. Zero.
Also, Pennsylvania was a critical swing state for Trump, who beat Clinton by about 44,000 votes in ’16. Clearly, the state was split over Hillary’s viability.
One thing Pennsylvanians are not split on, however, are the Eagles. They love ’em the way Trump loves bronzer. When the city won the Super Bowl, its first, Eagles fans nearly burned down the city in victorious fervor. They tipped over police cars. They punched patrol horses. They broke off and carried traffic signs, for some reason.
And you’re going to un-invite them to their first White House recognition?
This deserves the math refresher. You won PA by 44,000 votes. Lincoln Financial Field, which hosts the Eagles, holds 69,176 spectators. And you want to piss off that many people?
Even Jerry Jones would think twice. And he’s Republican.
