President Trump is all worked up again, vowing to not watch NFL or professional soccer games if players do not stand for the national anthem.
The U.S. Soccer Federation last week said it had dropped its requirement that players stand during the anthem, saying the policy was wrong and detracted from the Black Lives Matter movement.
The policy was adopted in 2017 after U.S. women’s national team captain Megan Rapinoe took a knee during the anthem before a game, in solidarity with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who knelt to call attention to racial injustice.
‘I won’t be watching much anymore,’ Trump tweeted in response to a report of Republican congressman Matt Gaetz criticising the MLS move.
‘And it looks like the NFL is heading in that direction also, but not with me watching,’ Trump said.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said this month that the league had made mistakes in not listening to players and denounced racism in the country amid protests over police brutality against black people.
The issue returned to the fore last month after the killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck.
Trump has been the most vocal critic of professional athletes who have knelt during the national anthem in protest of police killings of unarmed black Americans, saying in 2017 that any NFL player doing it should be fired.
Since the death of Floyd in Minneapolis and the subsequent nationwide protests against racism and police brutality, the issue, and the NFL’s response to the initial protests by Kaepernick has gained renewed attention.
Goodell issued a statement of support for black NFL players, saying the league stood against racism and apologizing for its earlier handling of player protests.
Trump sharply criticized Goodell’s statement as well, accusing him of giving players the okay to “disrespect our Country & our Flag.”
Public opinion on race and criminal justice issues has been steadily moving left since the first protests ignited over the fatal shootings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
And since the death of Floyd on May 25, public opinion on race, criminal justice and the Black Lives Matter movement has leaped leftward.
Over the last two weeks, support for Black Lives Matter increased by nearly as much as it had over the previous two years, according to data from Civiqs, an online survey research firm.
By a 28-point margin, Civiqs finds that a majority of American voters support the movement, up from a 17-point margin before the most recent wave of protests began.
The survey is not the only one to suggest that recent protests enjoy broad public support.
Weekly polling for the Democracy Fund’s U.C.L.A./Nationscape survey shows a significant increase in unfavorable views of the police, and an increase in the belief that African-Americans face a lot of discrimination.
Perhaps most significant, the Civiqs data is not alone in suggesting that an outright majority of Americans agree with the central arguments of Black Lives Matter.
A Monmouth University poll found that 76 percent of Americans consider racism and discrimination a “big problem,” up 26 points from 2015.
The poll found that 57 percent of voters thought the anger behind the demonstrations was fully justified, while a further 21 percent called it somewhat justified.
Polls show that a majority of Americans believe that the police are more likely to use deadly force against African-Americans, and that there’s a lot of discrimination against black Americans in society.
Back in 2013, when Black Lives Matter began, a majority of voters disagreed with all of these statements.