BRADEN FELLINGER
LIBERAL COLUMNIST
President Trump has many great statements. All of these statements presented can be found on his Twitter feed. Some of these include, “Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don’t always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.” (5:23 PM – 22 Jan 2017), “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. – Mark Twain” (29 Jan 2014), “President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name-our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them, not nonsense.” (8 Oct 2013) and “I’m not going to be watching much NFL football anymore. Too time consuming, too boring, too many flags and too soft. Focus on other things!” (5:03 PM – 5 Oct 2014).
Earlier this week Trump tweeted, “If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU’RE FIRED. Find something else to do!” – (23 Sep 2017). This “take a knee” controversy has gotten way out of hand, and the president has bigger problems to worry about. 2013 Donald Trump would agree with that.
Texas V. Johnson decided that all people have the right to disrespect and desecrate the American flag in any way as long as it is their property. This includes kneeling. All of those NFL players could come on the field and burn flags, but people want to throw a fit about them kneeling during the anthem. If it bothers you, then maybe you should turn the TV off and go to your safe space. If you think these rich people making a statement about oppression is hypocritical because they are not oppressed, then Christians making statements about oppressed Christians in the Middle East is hypocritical as well because Western Christians are not oppressed. It is not hypocritical to stick up for the little man.
When the president states that the NFL should do what he says and many players, coaches and owners speak out against him and kneel during the anthem just to make a statement against him, it really shows how weak his presidency is. People also complain that celebrities and Hollywood should stay out of politics. If that is the case, maybe you should not have elected the reality TV celebrity with a star on Hollywood Boulevard as president.
Another set of tweets from President Trump are, “Be prepared, there is a small chance that our horrendous leadership could unknowingly lead us into World War III.” (2:46 AM – 31 Aug 2013) and “Can you believe that the Afghan war is our ‘longest war’ ever—bring our troops home, rebuild the U.S., make America great again.” (2:07 PM – 14 Jan 2013). Every time North Korea does anything newsworthy, Trump takes to Twitter to make a statement. Many of these statements have halted progress in the situation. An example is the “fire and fury” tweet. These statements have gotten so bad that North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said the United States has declared war on North Korea and that North Korea will shoot down US bombers, according to the Guardian.
Trump is going back and forth with Kim Jong Un and diminishing our chances for a peaceful resolution and increasing our chances of war. China and Russia have condemned the escalation from both sides, but maybe they would be willing to help the United States a little more if Trump didn’t shoot his mouth off every time North Korea did anything. Trump’s decision to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan, prolonging the war, also goes against what he said in 2013. Trump also tweeted, “Polls are starting to look really bad for Obama. Looks like he’ll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don’t put it past him!” (7:30AM – 17 Oct 2012), and let’s hope that this will not happen.
If you look at his tweets, it seems that Trump has reversed his political beliefs and standards for the president. I don’t know if there is something about becoming president that makes people want to increase wars and create divisive situations, but it seems like this has been a trend in recent years. To quote a Trump tweet, “Our country is totally divided and our enemies are watching. We are not looking good, we are not looking smart, we are not looking tough!” (17 July 2016).
I will end this with a tweet by Trump that has aged well, which is: “If you read my last number of tweets, only one opinion can be formed – that our President, and therefore ‘leader,’ is grossly incompetent.” (6:45 PM 1 Aug 2014.)