So, the NFL’s owners have collectively adopted a new policy affecting football players during the national anthem. The policy doesn’t directly apply to players, but it does fine a team if any players on that team kneel or otherwise protest during the the national anthem.
This is fascism.
Yes, I know the NFL is a private company (actually it’s 32 different companies, with the league itself as a 33rd). And I know that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to employers, not normally anyway.
However, this is not normal.
The reason this is not normal is the influence of the President of the United States on the NFL’s policies. It’s abundantly clear that Trump is influencing this and he wants the NFL to squash these protests. His response to the NFL’s policy announcement was to ask if maybe protesters “shouldn’t be in the country”. More importantly, last year the President of the United States told the NFL that they should start firing players who protest.
When the President of the United States pressures an employer into punishing an employee, that is a government restraint on speech. And government restraints on speech are limited by the First Amendment. And the truly interesting thing is, we now know that Trump did influence NFL owners to adopt this new policy:
Several NFL owners said in depositions that President Donald Trump factored into conversations about how to handle protests during the national anthem, The Wall Street Journal reported.
While testifying as part of the Colin Kaepernick collusion case, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Trump spoke with him about the anthem.
“This is very winning, strong issue for me,” Jones said Trump told him during a phone call. “Tell everybody, you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.”
This is the President of the United States, using his influence as President to pressure employers to suppress speech by their employees, specifically because those employees are politically lined against him. How is that not fascism?