Sports stars' intensifying activism is a blow to Trump - POLITICO

MCCASKILL and MERIDITH MCGRAW08/27/2020 08:53 PM EDTLink CopiedPresident Donald Trump and the Republican Party are pitting themselves against LeBron James and Black athletes, as another police shooting of a Black man propels the country's sports stars to a new level of political activism.But unlike in 2017, when the president took aim at professional football players who kneeled for the national anthem to protest racial inequality, athletes’ activism in 2020 extends far more broadly, and the Black Lives Matter movement’s resonance across the country is far deeper. Asked by reporters Thursday about the protests, Trump responded that the NBA’s “ratings have been very bad.” “Unfortunately, they’ve become like a political organization, and that’s not a good thing, for sports or the country,” he added.Top White House officials were also dismissive, framing the protests as “silly” — rich athletes showing how privileged they are. “With the NBA, there’s a lot of activism and I think that they put a lot of slogans out, but I think that we need to turn that from slogans and signals to actual action that’s going to solve the problem.”Those responses, however, ignore sports’ cultural significance — something of which the president, himself, is well aware.Before Trump was in the Oval Office, he counted pro athletes like NFL quarterback Tom Brady and coaches like Bobby Knight among his celebrity friends. “And he’s using that leverage when it comes to speaking out and doing things about injustice and racism and systemic oppression.” Hill, who called Trump a white supremacist when she worked at ESPN, said she marvels at how outspoken James has become, recalling a time when the former Cleveland Cavalier was asked about genocide and tried to give an apolitical answer.That used to be the norm in pro sports.