During the week, if you search for trending topics on Twitter, you’ll usually get a barrage of politics, international events and things that are interesting for millennials, such as feeling the need to get out of bed and have a “good day” or whatever is hot on HBO or Netflix.
During the weekend, however, the US trending top 10 is 60% NFL. Secondly, half of that 60 % are mostly left-wing Twitter users promoting the NFL for their own purpose. “Take A Knee” is high on the list lately, higher than it should be if you look at Reuters / Ipsos poll findings on the NFL issue.
We wonder whether it is possible that Twitter is steering the conversation into a direction by any chance?
If you look at the Reuters / Ipsos poll numbers (and take into account that the majority of NFL viewers are white males mostly voting Republican then those are the only opinions worth inspecting): 65 % of Republican voters responded positively to the following statement: The US President is right commenting on matters relating to whether athletes stand or kneel during the national anthem. 55% of Republican voters said owners would be right to firing these athletes who refuse to stand.
Meanwhile, the political left looks at an NFL game and they see the flag, the anthem, military uniformed personnel, all the things that they do not stand for.
Any display of patriotism or individualism is not good for them, and that is why the players are being pushed to ‘take a knee’ or make a stand against something.
At least the NBA is smart enough to understand a political agenda if there ever was one. Yesterday they’ve sent around a memo to all their teams reminding them to stand for the national anthem. Kneeling will not be tolerated
Twitter will be rounding up any possible NFL kneeling again this weekend and making those players look more important than the game itself, though it is not.
Those players think they are saying something about police brutality, about social wrongs being done. It is not, this is a politically motivated attack on the NFL aimed at trying to lower its impact on American culture. Twitter is simply lending a hand.
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