I don’t give a **** about the USA corporation and its flag. But Drew Brees is an innocent brainwashed cuck who’s bought into the propaganda. He’s done nothing but support and cuck to blacks his whole career. Now he’s assuredly shocked to find out it was all pointless and futile.
Drew Brees
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I doubt he finds it futile, yet. He no doubt has an entire belief system which rationalizes the Caste System branch of Clown World, and why not he is nearly up till now totally insulated from the effects that non-rich second class whites suffer from Clown World. I might search out his threads and drop a sorry for your pain but you supported the Caste System and "ignorance" is not much of a defense. All of this is too bad of course a standup dude being taken down by low IQ felons and LeBron is a felon for his hate crime false charges.
La France Blanche
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I think Drew Brees is genuinely color-blind in his heart. He's gone from a mostly white background growing up to a very dark NFL team in a very dark city, playing football and enjoying life all the while. All he wanted to express was the same thing the Silent Majority is thinking - a desire for an end to riots and racial hatred, an end to lockdowns and curfews, and a return to normal where regular human beings can just enjoy life again.
His world view is very different from yours and mine but that's precisely why the Right is morally superior to the Left - because we as nationalists can still understand the world view of a color-blind guy like Brees, see where he's coming from, and understand why he thinks the way he does - things that the Left is incapable of or unwilling to grant to its dissenters.
LeBrown James is being typical LeBrown. He just may be my most despised athlete of all time. Never have I seen someone who's so pampered, coddled, and worshipped whine and cry so much. While many people have a persecution complex, I haven't seen anyone else as privileged as him have such a strong case of it as he does.
His world view is very different from yours and mine but that's precisely why the Right is morally superior to the Left - because we as nationalists can still understand the world view of a color-blind guy like Brees, see where he's coming from, and understand why he thinks the way he does - things that the Left is incapable of or unwilling to grant to its dissenters.
LeBrown James is being typical LeBrown. He just may be my most despised athlete of all time. Never have I seen someone who's so pampered, coddled, and worshipped whine and cry so much. While many people have a persecution complex, I haven't seen anyone else as privileged as him have such a strong case of it as he does.
Brees has now come around and performed the full contrition routine that all White public figures in the USSA must when they slip up in the slightest from the ever-changing Party Line. A White man can no longer express patriotism, even cucked patriotism, if it conflicts with the narrative of the Insurrection.
https://www.nfl.com/news/drew-brees...-b6b2b39a4690&mi_cmp=2b5cad6c27708d5c&mi_sc=t
The entire top-down bottom-up Insurrection is based on a Big Lie -- that unarmed black men are routinely singled out to be killed by White cops -- when the truth is that only 10 unarmed blacks were killed by police last year, compared to 19 Whites. But almost all of Covid-1984 is also based on lies. In fact, the entire fake news media is based on non-stop lies and propaganda.
Every single White public figure is now expected to stand in solidarity with the Big Lie that America is still hopelessly racist, that nothing has changed since the 1960s (and maybe 1840s for that matter). The facts don't matter, including the basic one that urban areas where blacks are massed are almost all now run by a coalition of White leftists and blacks. Not a single public figure will speak truth to power.
One side effect to expect is that the Caste System will be turbo-charged. We are likely close to the point now of one or several NFL teams starting all-black lineups in the next few seasons along with the continued diminishment of Whites in general, as this year's draft portended. The annual White purge this summer should be one for the ages.
https://www.nfl.com/news/drew-brees...-b6b2b39a4690&mi_cmp=2b5cad6c27708d5c&mi_sc=t
The entire top-down bottom-up Insurrection is based on a Big Lie -- that unarmed black men are routinely singled out to be killed by White cops -- when the truth is that only 10 unarmed blacks were killed by police last year, compared to 19 Whites. But almost all of Covid-1984 is also based on lies. In fact, the entire fake news media is based on non-stop lies and propaganda.
Every single White public figure is now expected to stand in solidarity with the Big Lie that America is still hopelessly racist, that nothing has changed since the 1960s (and maybe 1840s for that matter). The facts don't matter, including the basic one that urban areas where blacks are massed are almost all now run by a coalition of White leftists and blacks. Not a single public figure will speak truth to power.
One side effect to expect is that the Caste System will be turbo-charged. We are likely close to the point now of one or several NFL teams starting all-black lineups in the next few seasons along with the continued diminishment of Whites in general, as this year's draft portended. The annual White purge this summer should be one for the ages.
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TomIron361
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We have to keep in mind that it's not blacks per se. It's the jews who are pushing all this. The blacks have no power. The power of the government, press, and public education is all firmly in the hands of the jews. This is where the problem lies. Lastly, about the blacks. They simply don't have what it takes to measure up to standards in this technological society. Even the Mexicans re doing better than they are. There is simply no other solution but to deport them as President Lincoln wanted to do (of course, it's the jews who wo'nt let the people at large know that was his plan after the war).
Leonardfan
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Spot on post. There is no open conversation about race in this country - the false victim narrative is now truth in this country - no need for facts or asking the difficult questions as to why blacks make up a disproportionate number of criminals in this country or to the black on white crimes which are out of control. Their is a systemic discrimination but is all being brought to us from the left side of the political spectrum - the truth is not relevant.
Flint
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Yeah that was pretty bad, I expected it but it still is a surprise. I guess he doesn't have the courage of his convictions that his military relatives had.
He can go back to his pre game Zulu dances.
Neither surprised or disappointed because I understand that Drew lives in a huge cuck bubble and what Don said, the tiniest pin prick bursts it. Honestly if I were a big dollar white QB or about to be I would roll over in bed tweet out "blah, blah, blah must end systemic racism" then go back to my two cheerleaders. As Don has wrote before we cannot ask these kids or young men to face down the tyranny, it has resources that Hitler, Stalin and Mao could only have dreamed of in their days. IMO he is still toast, unless someone comes down hard on the black psychopaths and IMO I think that ship has sailed especially since the cuck white media will egg them on against Drew.
Good news is that Clown World is auto-delegitimizing itself and the stupid conservative act of thinking they have moral authority and only need to "Educate" the people and "liberals" can't save Clown World.
Good news is that Clown World is auto-delegitimizing itself and the stupid conservative act of thinking they have moral authority and only need to "Educate" the people and "liberals" can't save Clown World.
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FootballDad
Hall of Famer
For those who don't want to wander off-site to see his horribly rayciss comments. How dare he say that it disrespects the sacrifice of his eeeeeevil WHITE grandparents, who only did what they did to suppress minorities!! Yes, it is that absurd that his completely reasonable statement is now verboten in Amerika 2.0 Clown World:
Brees’ full answer:
“I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. Let me just tell what I see or what I feel when the national anthem is played and when I look at the flag of the United States. I envision my two grandfathers, who fought for this country during World War II, one in the Army and one in the Marine Corp. Both risking their lives to protect our country and to try to make our country and this world a better place. So every time I stand with my hand over my heart looking at that flag and singing the national anthem, that’s what I think about. And in many cases, that brings me to tears, thinking about all that has been sacrificed. Not just those in the military, but for that matter, those throughout the civil rights movements of the ‘60s, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it is not. We still have a long way to go. But I think what you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together, we can all do better and that we are all part of the solution.”
Continued from the same S.I./Yahoo commentary below. Of course Anthony Lynn is incorrect, Kraepernick's comment was ALL about the "Flag", meaning the evil, rayciss country that hasn't converted over to straight Communism as he would prefer:
Brees’ comments about “disrespecting the flag” come days after Los Angeles Chargers coach Anthony Lynn explained how Colin Kaepernick’s protest was misunderstood. In a wide-ranging interview with LZ Granderson of the Los Angeles Times, Lynn explained Kaepernick was protesting criminal justice reform and police brutality, not the flag.
“People completely misunderstood Colin and what he was trying to do,” Lynn said. “People talked about disrespecting the flag . . . the flag covers a lot — patriotism and civil rights and other things. And Colin was speaking out against the injustice and a lot of people didn’t catch on to that because it was happening during the national anthem. They thought it was disrespectful to the flag. I was surprised by the number of people who didn’t know why he was protesting. I got letters from people. I had people walk up to me and ask, ‘Coach, what are you going to do if someone on your team protests?’ And I had to explain to them that Colin is taking a knee for criminal justice [reform] and police brutality and once you broke it down, they were like, “Oh, we didn’t know that. We thought he was protesting the flag.” And that was the case for a lot of people I came across.”
Brees’ full answer:
“I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. Let me just tell what I see or what I feel when the national anthem is played and when I look at the flag of the United States. I envision my two grandfathers, who fought for this country during World War II, one in the Army and one in the Marine Corp. Both risking their lives to protect our country and to try to make our country and this world a better place. So every time I stand with my hand over my heart looking at that flag and singing the national anthem, that’s what I think about. And in many cases, that brings me to tears, thinking about all that has been sacrificed. Not just those in the military, but for that matter, those throughout the civil rights movements of the ‘60s, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it is not. We still have a long way to go. But I think what you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together, we can all do better and that we are all part of the solution.”
Continued from the same S.I./Yahoo commentary below. Of course Anthony Lynn is incorrect, Kraepernick's comment was ALL about the "Flag", meaning the evil, rayciss country that hasn't converted over to straight Communism as he would prefer:
Brees’ comments about “disrespecting the flag” come days after Los Angeles Chargers coach Anthony Lynn explained how Colin Kaepernick’s protest was misunderstood. In a wide-ranging interview with LZ Granderson of the Los Angeles Times, Lynn explained Kaepernick was protesting criminal justice reform and police brutality, not the flag.
“People completely misunderstood Colin and what he was trying to do,” Lynn said. “People talked about disrespecting the flag . . . the flag covers a lot — patriotism and civil rights and other things. And Colin was speaking out against the injustice and a lot of people didn’t catch on to that because it was happening during the national anthem. They thought it was disrespectful to the flag. I was surprised by the number of people who didn’t know why he was protesting. I got letters from people. I had people walk up to me and ask, ‘Coach, what are you going to do if someone on your team protests?’ And I had to explain to them that Colin is taking a knee for criminal justice [reform] and police brutality and once you broke it down, they were like, “Oh, we didn’t know that. We thought he was protesting the flag.” And that was the case for a lot of people I came across.”
FootballDad
Hall of Famer
Just in case anyone, like LeBrown James, needs to be reminded why Kraepernick kneeled, here is from Colin's very own trap:
"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."
"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."
white is right
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Lebron should pray his PED connection doesn't rat him out, this rant is free advertising for his whining show......
PS, Brees record on uplifting New Orleans speaks for itself if it was me I would have told his malcontent teammate to meet me at my mansion and we can hash out our differences and if he didn't like that then he could f#@k off.....
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Flint
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And they know that too. But they like to lie when called on it so they can have it both ways.
What the hell do the police have to do with the flag. Police departments are all independent organizations that have nothing to do with each other besides communications.
What the hell do the police have to do with the flag. Police departments are all independent organizations that have nothing to do with each other besides communications.
FootballDad
Hall of Famer
And therein lies the dishonesty in what they say. Protesting the flag is NOT about police departments and other LE. It's all about how this country was allegedly founded as a rayciss country with a rayciss Constitution by a bunch of white rayciss slaveowners. It all needs to be overthrown and replaced by the communist manifesto. Now the black thugs and lowlifes that are being opportunists in all of this don't see it in that detail, they are just looking for more free stuff and "reparations".
The (((usual suspects))) who are behind the rabble-rousing see it this way, that is their goal. Everyone equally miserable under their thumbs.
As for Brees, I'm not sure he can come back from this, with a 90% black team and 90%+ black defenses waiting to try to injure him. Strip it all away and do these black players and blacks in general really care about the country's founding and all of that? No. But they are easily manipulated to the hive mind so here we are.
The (((usual suspects))) who are behind the rabble-rousing see it this way, that is their goal. Everyone equally miserable under their thumbs.
As for Brees, I'm not sure he can come back from this, with a 90% black team and 90%+ black defenses waiting to try to injure him. Strip it all away and do these black players and blacks in general really care about the country's founding and all of that? No. But they are easily manipulated to the hive mind so here we are.
I'm impressed with Brees, even after his Stalin-style forced apology. It shows he has good instincts. Also keep in mind that Brees' career and family are both huge commitments. It's not like he's well versed in the works of Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, and Jared Taylor, engaging in the extensive reading and contemplation it takes to reject the dominant narrative.
White QB's are in a tough spot. Hundreds of black players have thousands of opportunities to hurt them in a given season. Things have greatly accelerated since Kerry Collins got the "racist" label in the late 90's. This is a rare situation where cucking can be excused in my view.
Still, at 41 years old and with 200+ million in the bank, it's hard to think of a better opportunity for a White athlete to speak out. But it's still not a reasonable expectation.
White QB's are in a tough spot. Hundreds of black players have thousands of opportunities to hurt them in a given season. Things have greatly accelerated since Kerry Collins got the "racist" label in the late 90's. This is a rare situation where cucking can be excused in my view.
Still, at 41 years old and with 200+ million in the bank, it's hard to think of a better opportunity for a White athlete to speak out. But it's still not a reasonable expectation.
The nice well meaning man has issued yet another apology. I hope for his own good he is not hard headed and takes to the field, no matter how much cuckery he displays going forward and it will be an amount we can barely fathom I still don't wish him harm and harm is on the way if he tries to play. His family and friends should convince him to go into charity work, that would be an honorable exit and less life threatening.
What gets me is that he has spent his entire adult life around a blacker than normal part of society and does not understand the psychopathy that runs rampant thru the black community and even the normal ones excuse it especially when it is against whites, that my friends is the danger of cuckery and civnat idiocy.
Every white athlete should know the Caste System exists if only to know how to avoid the pitfalls, we are not asking for athlete kamikaze missions.
Every white athlete should know the Caste System exists if only to know how to avoid the pitfalls, we are not asking for athlete kamikaze missions.
Speaking of charity, he's been doing charity. 5 million a week ago to mostly black people affected from the shutdown. They don't give a ****, ungrateful "what have you done for me lately" even though that was just a week ago. Millions to rebuild after Katrina. Millions to the failing inner city schools that are (shocking) still failing despite all the efforts. But he took a picture with the President of the United States and that must mean he's evil
Agreed!
Leonardfan
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I have nothing against Brees - I honestly think he should walk away and retire. Like you said he has done more for blacks then most players in the NFL and that is how he gets treated. It's true mob mentality.
BeyondFedUp
Hall of Famer
Totally agree. Cuckery is out if control right now and a successful White Christian athlete doing it is extremely pathetic. This is not just sickening, it is literally sin on Brees' part. Whites are committing suicide and literally kneeling in cuckery just before they are destroyed.
Guys, I'll be honest. I have never seen the Communist brainwashing on full display with our enemies (((the Jews))) playing us like a fiddle as I am now. I have never been more disgusted with what I am seeing across this nation and even in other White nations. Some of us are taking a stand but apparently not enough of us. This is sickening beyond words as BLM (Burn, Loot, Murder) is lauded and dumbass Whites march along with them if even figuratively to their their/our death. We are in serious trouble as a nation guys. This is not a show anymore to watch on tv and just go on whistling to our 9 to 5 life. It's too serious now. NFL is a swear word to me now. We have life to think about now. Not sports. This is life and death, literally.
FootballDad
Hall of Famer
Nice article in an unlikely place, National Review, about how Brees should have just said nothing rather than groveling to the Mob:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/begging-the-mobs-forgiveness-doesnt-work/
Begging the Mob’s Forgiveness Doesn’t Work
You can’t apologize enough to the woke and the restless.
By KYLE SMITH June 10, 2020 2:07 PM 6/10/2020
After the actual riots, the metaphorical ones. Reputations get burned down. Careers get their windows smashed in. Character gets assassinated.
Much of this has been nearly as senseless, emotion-driven, and inane as the actual burning, looting, and destroying of urban neighborhoods. Attacking Drew Brees for expressing widely held patriotic beliefs was about as rational as setting fire to a gas station. Brees should have realized this, taken a deep breath, and reacted in the following way: by doing nothing. Brees should have let his original statement stand. “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America,” was what he said, adding that thinking about the flag and the national anthem “brings me to tears thinking about all that’s been sacrificed. Not just those in the military, but for that matter, those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point.” Brees said paying respect to the flag “shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together, we can all do better, and that we are all part of the solution.”
Stirring words, and nothing inflammatory about them. Tony Dungy chimed in, “Drew Brees can’t be afraid to say that and we can’t be afraid to say ‘Okay, I don’t agree with you but let’s talk about this.’ We can’t just say anytime something happens we don’t agree with, ‘Hey I’m done with that and this person.’ That doesn’t make sense.”
Brees made his situation worse by apologizing for these remarks, which only turned up the outrage. The quarterback’s ritual groveling simply made his detractors more powerful. They demanded further groveling, and he complied. Now he has stamped himself forever as an antagonist to both sides of the culture war. The radical Left will never forgive him for his original statement for daring to question woke wisdom, while the majority who love this country and its symbols can never unsee his pathetic, craven cringing in the face of the mob.
Do not pour oil on troubled waters if, thanks to an oil spill, those waters are already on fire. Other public figures should take note: Begging the mob’s forgiveness doesn’t work. Brees could have simply remained silent after his original tribute to Old Glory, and tempers would have cooled. More and more people would have come to his defense. Those who were initially angry would have come to realize that Brees said nothing offensive.
When you apologize for stating the plain truth, you almost never succeed in appeasing the mob. Instead, you grant the mob’s premises. You take its side. You tell the roiling masses that it’s time to open fire on you, as you volunteer for your own firing squad. Brees is as unused to being a target of foam-flecked attacks as I am to throwing 50-yard touchdown passes in the Superdome, but as someone who has been targeted by social-media dudgeon many times and has never begged forgiveness in the 15 years my published thoughts have been making people furious, I could have told him: These things blow over in 48 hours. Nobody in the land of short attention spans can stay enraged about the same thing for very long. Fires burn out if you don’t keep refueling them.
All over the culture, that lesson is going unheeded. Americans who rush to prostrate themselves before the mob are finding that the mob never replies, “Oh, that’s fine, then. Go on about your life with our blessing.” Claudia Eller was the editor of Variety last week. Now she isn’t, because she decided to make gestures of woke obeisance in a lengthy, self-flagellating column about George Floyd, systemic racism, Donald Trump’s behavior, and police brutality, none of them obviously topics of much concern to a showbiz site. The column was full of long quotations from staffers of color and oozed with both compassion for their plight and vows to add more of them — “As editor-in-chief of Variety I have tried to diversify our newsroom over the past 7 years, but I HAVE NOT DONE ENOUGH,” she wrote. Naturally, some writers smelled blood and began berating her on social media for her insensitivity. Eller replied to one of them on Twitter, not unreasonably, “When someone cops to something why would you try to criticize them? You sound really bitter.” Eller was jobless the next day, issuing more apologies, decrying her own leadership, and saying she was ashamed on her way out the door. Variety says Eller is now on a two-month leave, but as the indispensable Hollywood columnist Richard Rushfield notes in his The Ankler newsletter, “I’m not sure how you walk back from an admission that you’re unprepared for a leadership role in a newsroom. You don’t just take two months off and then show up on the doorstep and say, I watched a MasterClass in leadership and now I’m ready.”
On the East Coast, nearly the same thing happened at nearly the same time: Bon Appétit editor Adam Rapoport hurled himself at the feet of the mob, begged its forgiveness, vowed to do better, and found himself joining the unemployment rolls. In a column entitled “Food Has Always Been Political: Bon Appétit’s editor in chief Adam Rapoport on how we’re covering the nationwide uprisings,” Rapaport repeated talking points from the woke catechism, inspiring a food writer with 8,000 Twitter followers to berate him for not doing enough. At some point in the pile-on, someone remembered that Rapaport had posed as a Puerto Rican at a Halloween party 16 years ago (the picture had been on Instagram), and his contract was terminated. Follow-up hysteria-reporting revealed that there had been a “culture of microaggression” at Bon Appétit. So, it’s a Condé Nast magazine, then.
Though few have the backbone to tell a howling mob to get stuffed, or even calmly to explain why it’s in the wrong, simply mustering the fortitude to ignore its cries is a perfectly workable option. Don’t want your food magazine to get fragged in the culture wars? Maybe don’t write a piece proclaiming, “Food has always been political.” Don’t think you’ve done anything wrong? Then don’t say, “I must do better.” Over in the U.K., a key adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, touched off a press freakout that was startling even by the ten-Red-Bulls-before-breakfast standards of the British media by supposedly breaking his own government’s social-distancing policies when he and his wife were battling coronavirus. Cummings levelly explained that he had broken no law, defended his actions, and declined to fit his neck into the guillotine. Johnson stood by him and the story was over. Courage, we seem to have forgotten, is not only virtuous, it can be useful.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/begging-the-mobs-forgiveness-doesnt-work/
Begging the Mob’s Forgiveness Doesn’t Work
You can’t apologize enough to the woke and the restless.
By KYLE SMITH June 10, 2020 2:07 PM 6/10/2020
After the actual riots, the metaphorical ones. Reputations get burned down. Careers get their windows smashed in. Character gets assassinated.
Much of this has been nearly as senseless, emotion-driven, and inane as the actual burning, looting, and destroying of urban neighborhoods. Attacking Drew Brees for expressing widely held patriotic beliefs was about as rational as setting fire to a gas station. Brees should have realized this, taken a deep breath, and reacted in the following way: by doing nothing. Brees should have let his original statement stand. “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America,” was what he said, adding that thinking about the flag and the national anthem “brings me to tears thinking about all that’s been sacrificed. Not just those in the military, but for that matter, those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point.” Brees said paying respect to the flag “shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together, we can all do better, and that we are all part of the solution.”
Stirring words, and nothing inflammatory about them. Tony Dungy chimed in, “Drew Brees can’t be afraid to say that and we can’t be afraid to say ‘Okay, I don’t agree with you but let’s talk about this.’ We can’t just say anytime something happens we don’t agree with, ‘Hey I’m done with that and this person.’ That doesn’t make sense.”
Brees made his situation worse by apologizing for these remarks, which only turned up the outrage. The quarterback’s ritual groveling simply made his detractors more powerful. They demanded further groveling, and he complied. Now he has stamped himself forever as an antagonist to both sides of the culture war. The radical Left will never forgive him for his original statement for daring to question woke wisdom, while the majority who love this country and its symbols can never unsee his pathetic, craven cringing in the face of the mob.
Do not pour oil on troubled waters if, thanks to an oil spill, those waters are already on fire. Other public figures should take note: Begging the mob’s forgiveness doesn’t work. Brees could have simply remained silent after his original tribute to Old Glory, and tempers would have cooled. More and more people would have come to his defense. Those who were initially angry would have come to realize that Brees said nothing offensive.
When you apologize for stating the plain truth, you almost never succeed in appeasing the mob. Instead, you grant the mob’s premises. You take its side. You tell the roiling masses that it’s time to open fire on you, as you volunteer for your own firing squad. Brees is as unused to being a target of foam-flecked attacks as I am to throwing 50-yard touchdown passes in the Superdome, but as someone who has been targeted by social-media dudgeon many times and has never begged forgiveness in the 15 years my published thoughts have been making people furious, I could have told him: These things blow over in 48 hours. Nobody in the land of short attention spans can stay enraged about the same thing for very long. Fires burn out if you don’t keep refueling them.
All over the culture, that lesson is going unheeded. Americans who rush to prostrate themselves before the mob are finding that the mob never replies, “Oh, that’s fine, then. Go on about your life with our blessing.” Claudia Eller was the editor of Variety last week. Now she isn’t, because she decided to make gestures of woke obeisance in a lengthy, self-flagellating column about George Floyd, systemic racism, Donald Trump’s behavior, and police brutality, none of them obviously topics of much concern to a showbiz site. The column was full of long quotations from staffers of color and oozed with both compassion for their plight and vows to add more of them — “As editor-in-chief of Variety I have tried to diversify our newsroom over the past 7 years, but I HAVE NOT DONE ENOUGH,” she wrote. Naturally, some writers smelled blood and began berating her on social media for her insensitivity. Eller replied to one of them on Twitter, not unreasonably, “When someone cops to something why would you try to criticize them? You sound really bitter.” Eller was jobless the next day, issuing more apologies, decrying her own leadership, and saying she was ashamed on her way out the door. Variety says Eller is now on a two-month leave, but as the indispensable Hollywood columnist Richard Rushfield notes in his The Ankler newsletter, “I’m not sure how you walk back from an admission that you’re unprepared for a leadership role in a newsroom. You don’t just take two months off and then show up on the doorstep and say, I watched a MasterClass in leadership and now I’m ready.”
On the East Coast, nearly the same thing happened at nearly the same time: Bon Appétit editor Adam Rapoport hurled himself at the feet of the mob, begged its forgiveness, vowed to do better, and found himself joining the unemployment rolls. In a column entitled “Food Has Always Been Political: Bon Appétit’s editor in chief Adam Rapoport on how we’re covering the nationwide uprisings,” Rapaport repeated talking points from the woke catechism, inspiring a food writer with 8,000 Twitter followers to berate him for not doing enough. At some point in the pile-on, someone remembered that Rapaport had posed as a Puerto Rican at a Halloween party 16 years ago (the picture had been on Instagram), and his contract was terminated. Follow-up hysteria-reporting revealed that there had been a “culture of microaggression” at Bon Appétit. So, it’s a Condé Nast magazine, then.
Though few have the backbone to tell a howling mob to get stuffed, or even calmly to explain why it’s in the wrong, simply mustering the fortitude to ignore its cries is a perfectly workable option. Don’t want your food magazine to get fragged in the culture wars? Maybe don’t write a piece proclaiming, “Food has always been political.” Don’t think you’ve done anything wrong? Then don’t say, “I must do better.” Over in the U.K., a key adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, touched off a press freakout that was startling even by the ten-Red-Bulls-before-breakfast standards of the British media by supposedly breaking his own government’s social-distancing policies when he and his wife were battling coronavirus. Cummings levelly explained that he had broken no law, defended his actions, and declined to fit his neck into the guillotine. Johnson stood by him and the story was over. Courage, we seem to have forgotten, is not only virtuous, it can be useful.