(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — Fox News snowflakes are melting in anticipation of the Super Bowl, where they fear NFL players may take a knee in ongoing protests against police brutality and institutional racism.
On the Outnumbered morning show, the panel expressed their dismay and fragility over the possibility that the apparent disrespect would be televised.
“Just days after President Trump stood for the national anthem at the college football championship,” host Katie Pavlich began, clearly framing the narrative that was to come, “the producers of the upcoming Super Bowl say they’ll show [it] if NFL players take a knee.”
“So didn’t half of their viewers just turn off their dial for Super Bowl weekend [and] find something else to do?” she remarked.
Guest Dan Bongino, a former secret service agent, smugly chimed in.
“Yeah, we’re covering a live event, too, it’s been ongoing for two years now, which is the destruction of the NFL brand,” he said. As the female hosts laughed, he added, “I promise you this will be taught in business schools from this point on as an episode of what not to do to keep your goodwill and brand equity. I mean, this is a disgrace, an absolute total embarrassment.”
Asked if he wanted cameras turned away in the event of kneeling, he responded:
“No, I want them to tell the people ‘Get off your damn knees and stand up for the American anthem that people died for in this country. You wanna protest? Go out there and do it on your own time. These are our fields, this is our brand. You are gonna stand and put your hand on your heart or that million dollar salary’s getting flushed down the toilet bowl. Have a nice day.’”
Despite right-wingers’ ongoing boycott of the NFL, host Melissa Francis advised viewers to keep watching but record the games and fast forward through the ‘offensive’ material (even though doing so arguably cancels out the effect of boycotting).
“[I]t’s interesting,” she said. “I think more and more people are watching it on delay. In my household, we wait until the game is already started, and then we turn it on.”
Host Sandra Smith attempted to play devil’s advocate, but not before making it abundantly clear that she disapproves of NBC’s choice to air potential footage of players kneeling.
“I don’t know what obligation the television networks have, but I think that their point is — I’m not defending it — their point is ‘We’ve got our cameras on a game, this is part of the game, we’re going to show every bit of it.”
Bongino still had more to say, waxing melodramatic over his decision to boycott the NFL
“If they don’t fix this problem, I can almost guarantee you in four or five years that the NFL is going to be the field hockey or modern sports,” he said, eventually adding:
“I was a Raiders and Ravens fan, and I’m telling you, it destroyed my soul to not watch the Super Bowl last year. NFL and me, we are absolutely completely divorced.”
And there we have it: a right-wing snowflake suffering from the destruction of his sacred soul because he couldn’t watch a football game — all because he couldn’t handle American citizens exercising their right to free speech and a private company supporting their right to allegedly not respect “an anthem.”
Bongino has repeatedly decried the NFL protests since 2016.
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