NFL Star Stands for Mexican Anthem, Just to Rub It In

President Trump came out swinging on Monday when he learned of NFL star Marshawn Lynch’s egregious disrespect for the national anthem. Lynch, who has been sitting for the “Star-Spangled Banner” since the NFL season began, actually stood up for the Mexican anthem this weekend after sitting for the American song.

The incident occurred in Mexico City, where the Oakland Raiders were in town to play the New England Patriots at Azteca Stadium.

“Marshawn Lynch of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders stands for the Mexican anthem and sits down to boos for our national anthem. Great disrespect!” Trump tweeted. “Next time NFL should suspend him for the remainder of the season. Attendance and ratings way down.”

Trump wasn’t the only one offended by Lynch’s actions. Legendary football star Herschel Walker said he was personally “insulted” by the ongoing protests and believed that people like Lynch never saw the “take a knee” protests as anything more than a joke.

“I said guys should be suspended at the beginning,” Walker said. “I don’t care what people say. The national anthem is the United States of America. You never protest that.”

Lynch himself has not commented on his decision to stand for the Mexican anthem while sitting for the U.S. anthem, but he has weighed in on the protests themselves. In 2016, shortly after Colin Kaepernick began kneeling for the song, Lynch said, “With what’s going on, I’d rather see him take a knee than stand up, put his hands up and get murdered. So my take on it is, we’ve got to start somewhere, and if that was the start, I just hope people open up their eyes to see that there’s really a problem going on, and something needs to be done for it to stop. If you’re really not racist then you won’t see what he’s doing as a threat to America.”

Well, no, it’s not necessarily a “threat to America,” but it IS highly disrespectful, extraordinarily misguided, and extremely offensive to millions of American patriots, veterans, and football fans, to name but a few outraged groups. And if these protests were ever really about police brutality, then they have long since become about something completely different.

The spotlight is no longer on police misconduct – that is, if it ever was. It is on these players, who are loving the limelight and loving the attention they’re getting for disrespecting the flag. Loving this little war they’ve got going on with the White House. Sometimes it feels like the best thing we could possibly do is to just start ignoring their petty little demonstrations altogether.