Don’t we all?

Some people thought that when we found out that it was a Green Beret who convinced Colin Kaepernick not to sit, but to kneel, during the National Anthem, we would all have a change of heart and expose ourselves as hypocrites. Sorry to disappoint you, but No. I don’t care who thought up this stunt, even if the originator is white. Even if he is a decorated war hero. It is a terrible, stupid, insulting protest, and at the very least is ineffective and counterproductive. At worst, it is wildly divisive and destructive to national unity.

Nate Boyer, the Green Beret who thought kneeling was a nice compromise, has good intentions, but he is wrong. He is wrong about how we come together as a nation and he is wrong about the kind of damage this protest is causing. But he is right about a few things:

Simply put, it seems like we just hate each other; and that is far more painful to me than any protest, or demonstration, or rally, or tweet. We’re told to pick a side, there’s a line drawn in the sand “are you with us or against us?” It’s just not who we are, or at least who we’re supposed to be; we’re supposed to be better than that, we’re Americans. This doesn’t even seem to be about right or wrong, but more about right or left.

Did he just now notice how much hate there is? Does he think Colin Kaepernick and Donald Trump started this whole thing? He’s right, there is an enormous amount of hate being spewed, and it is almost entirely coming from the Left. The Right has been under assault for years, but maybe it didn’t register with anybody because Obama’s words sounded so pretty, and his pants’ crease was so mesmerizingly crisp. And it goes back further than Obama, but I’ll stop there.

Even now, when the country is under assault through the undermining of our national identity, what has the Right done? Simply asked that people stand for the National Anthem. That’s it! But somehow that is an offense that is too prideful, too nationalistic, too patriotic, too populist, “My God, You’re a FASCIST!” Get it? See how that works. Do try to keep up.