It’s been almost one year since the NFL players took a knee to protest police brutality, and everyone is still talking about Colin Kaepernick, the 1-10 unemployed quarterback. Kaepernick famously made headlines back then by refusing to stand for the national anthem, and has recently has found himself back in the headlines again, thanks to President Donald Trump.

During one of his rallies in Alabama, Trump said “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s fired!’”

What we have received from Trump’s presidency so far is an attack on Syria, no Obama Care repeal, more troops in Afghanistan, and no DACA repeal. But thank heavens Trump is tweeting and attacking people who throw a ball for a living, the real issues affecting Americans. Trump supporters need to realize that he is only attacking Kaepernick to distract them from all of his policy failures.

To distract his supporters from these failures, Trump wants his base to rally around an issue he knows they’ll support, and his best assets in the energizing of his base is the mainstream media and Hollywood. For every 10-minute Trevor Noah soliloquy and Jimmy Kimmel waterworks performance, Trump’s base grows stronger with increased support for him.

However, I find this attack on players protesting pretty silly. The NFL is a private organization. If they want to let players kneel then there is nothing wrong with that. Private businesses should be able to do what they want without government coercion, so an NFL player should be able kneel as a form protest. A Christian baker can also choose not to bake a wedding cake for a gay wedding as a form of protest. The government shouldn’t be involved in either of these issues because they’re private businesses.

The judge, jury, and executioner should come from the free market. If the NFL thinks the players protesting the anthem is hurting their business, then they should change policy. It should be the business’ choice; not government coercion. Many people use the argument that it is disrespectful to the troops. However, the ultimate disrespect to the troops would be if a solider gave his life defending someone’s right to freedom of speech only to have that taken away by a president.

This anthem controversy is nothing but bait. Trump supporters have to stop blindly taking his side when he says something as silly as firing a player for exercising their First Amendment right. Trump supporters should be pressuring Trump to make policies that are going to help Americans, not encouraging him to fight football players.

On the other side of things, however, it seems that Hollywood and the media pounce on every silly thing Trump said and it make it an entire ordeal for weeks. Trump then just uses their own outrage against them. He makes his supporters believe these people hate the flag and the troops, and that’s why the players are kneeling. If Trump is able to continue to paint the left as anti-American by using their words and their anger, then Trump is going to widen the political disparity even more, and never talk about what actually matters.