When Nike featured Colin Kaepernick in an ad to promote its merchandise, all hell broke loose on Fox News which launched an all-out attack on Kaepernick and Nike.
Nike has a new ad featuring Kaepernick, the former football player who was the first to “take a knee,” during the national anthem, to protest policy brutality and a racist justice system. The text of the Nike ad, under a photo of Kaepernick, reads, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything” – a reference to how his career came to a grinding halt after the protests expanded.
Conservatives and Donald Trump have twisted Kaepernick’s benign protest into an insult to the American flag and military veterans. Naturally, Fox News provided a mouthpiece for the faux indignation. The Nike ad provided Fox pundits with more opportunity to pimp their patriotic outrage in a patriotic pile-on.
Tuesday's propaganda blitz began on Fox’s early morning first yard-line, Fox & Friends, when the guest, the perpetually poutraged Michelle Malkin said that Nike’s decision, “to follow in the NFL’s footsteps and alienate half of its consumer base,” was an insult to “God and the fallen.” (So now, God has been insulted. Who knew?!)
In another segment, cohost Steve Doocy showed video of country music star John Rich’s (winner of Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” season 11) soundman and ex-Marine cutting the Nike “swoosh” off his socks. Doocy: “Get ready for that, Nike, multiply that by the millions.” He showed video of Nike sneaker burnings.
The “patriotism” card was played when a photo of a military funeral, posted on the Twitter account of a disabled veteran who has appeared on Fox, was shown. This was followed by another video, from earlier in the show, of Kevin Jackson – one of Fox’s black pundits whose purpose is to advance right wing talking points and scold other African-Americans. Naturally, he attacked Kaepernick and also informed us that Kaepernick is lying when he says there is police brutality towards blacks.
After cohost Brian Kilmeade questioned the “timing” of the protest during the anthem, Doocy suggested that this will hurt Nike’s business. He cited only “online outrage” to support his point. There were several other Fox & friends segments which covered the same talking point; but the best one of all featured the drum major for America’s white grievance marching band, Tucker Carlson.
Carlson criticized Nike executives who are profiting from Kaepernick’s “attacks on the United States” and laughed about their professed concern for racial justice “as if it’s never been raised before.” He proclaimed, “This is an attack on our country” and brayed that “sitting during the National Anthem” (Kaepernick took a knee) is “an impossible-to-rebut attack against the country that made him and Nike rich.” (Oh, don’t you just hate those ungrateful blacks!) He continued to blither about the “decadence” of elites who “hate the society.”
After Doocy cited the Nike shoe burning, Carlson quipped that Kaepernick’s feelings about race are “not even that interesting." He alleged that the protest isn’t “specific” when, of course, it is.
Kilmeade again whined about the timing of the protest during the anthem. Like Carlson, he described the protest as “sitting” which was Kaepernick’s original form of protest. What Kilmeade didn’t mention is that Kaepernick took a knee after U.S. Army vet Nate Boyer recommended that instead of sitting.
While Carlson dismissed Kaepernick as a “hapless kid,” he directed his ire towards “the sinister figures” who are “profiting from attacking the country.” Poor Tucker, a member of the right-wing ruling class, concluded: “What happens over time if your ruling class decides to attack the very system that made their lives possible? Everything falls apart. So that’s why we should be worried about this. It’s bigger than just one football player.” (Oh, nooo.....!!!!)
Later in the day, The Five and Hannity continued the unnecessary roughness towards both Kaepernick and Nike cuz, you know, soldiers and stuff. Propaganda touchdown?
Watch Carlson freak out above, from the Tuesday, September 4, 2018 Fox & Friends.
Published with permission from Newshounds.us
