Colin Kaepernick is the new face of Nike's Believe in Something campaign, and it's an inspiring one, but what does it really have to do with the conservative reaction to it? Shouldn't we just ignore them?
00:00:00.000All right. So let's I want to say a few things about this Colin Kaepernick situation. As as you as you know, I'm sure Colin Kaepernick is the new face of Nike and their believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything campaign.
00:00:16.740Very inspiring, very inspiring stuff. Wait, that is the tagline, right? Yeah, believe in something. Yeah, that's the tagline. The new commercial was unveiled. I believe it officially debuts today, as a matter of fact, but there was a sneak peek, a sneak peek of the commercial came out yesterday.
00:00:35.060And so the commercial is is Kaepernick narrating over images of various athletes doing doing legitimately courageous things like there's one there's an athlete who's overcame a brain tumor, another who became a wrestler, even though he doesn't have legs.
00:00:55.880And then the camera cuts back to Colin Kaepernick. And Kaepernick is actually smothering a bald eagle with a burning American flag. And so that was a little bit provocative, but not surprised. No, actually, Kaepernick, he just says a bunch of generically inspiring cliches about following your dreams and so forth.
00:01:18.460And then the last, the last line of the commercial, it was the last line of the commercial is, so don't ask if your dreams are crazy. Ask if they're crazy enough, which is one of those lines that I mean, I guess it sounds inspiring. It doesn't mean anything. Ask if your dreams are crazy enough. Like that's, that's supposed to be your driving the philosophy that drives your life.
00:01:45.300Like, no, that dream's not crazy enough. No, I need crazier dreams. Yeah. Is that what you would tell your kids? Your kid says to you, you know, I want to be a doctor. No, it's not crazy enough. You need to come back here with crazier dreams. Okay, I want really crazy dreams. Okay, I want to fly to Mars. There you go. That should be your goal, flying to Mars. No, that's a crazy dream. Go chase it. Anyway, it's all pretty, pretty innocuous. The commercial is innocuous.
00:02:10.920And in fact, I find Kaepernick himself to be, in general, a pretty innocuous character. I'm just not, I am not naturally filled with the kind of blind rage about Colin Kaepernick that a lot of other conservatives seem to be filled with. I never have been.
00:02:29.420I haven't been able to generate the anger, especially the sustained anger that so many conservatives have about Colin Kaepernick.
00:02:39.160Three years later, they're still so angry at this guy. I couldn't, I mean, listen, and that tells you something,
00:02:47.500because if I'm not able to stay angry about Colin Kaepernick, I don't know how anyone else can.
00:02:53.660Um, because usually staying angry, it's one of the skills that I have. I do think it's kind of amazing
00:03:01.260that we're still talking about this three years later. And it seems to be, um, it's part of this
00:03:07.420trend that I've pointed out before, where both sides of the political divide, they seem to kind of pick
00:03:17.060out stars, the stars and the spokesmen for the other side. So, um, the right made stars out of
00:03:27.060David Hogg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Colin Kaepernick. Um, and then the left made a president
00:03:35.280out of Donald Trump. And they both accomplished that for the other side by being utterly, completely
00:03:41.900obsessed with these people. Like conservatives are obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I mean,
00:03:48.460easily 90% of the coverage that I see and read about this woman comes from conservatives. The
00:03:54.880same thing with David Hogg. And it's definitely the same thing with Colin Kaepernick. I mean,
00:03:59.040conservatives are obsessed with these people. They can't, they just can't give them, get them out
00:04:02.400of their head. And, uh, the same thing on the other end happened and it's happened with other things
00:04:06.620with leftists, but obviously the biggest example is Donald Trump. Donald Trump came on the scene
00:04:11.500and liberals just obsessed with a guy, liberal media obsessed with him and he became president.
00:04:17.340Um, which I think is an interesting phenomenon and, uh, maybe not a good strategy, maybe a better
00:04:25.220strategy. Like if you're on the right and there's somebody on the left who you think is really stupid,
00:04:31.500ridiculous, shallow, inconsequential, irrelevant, all of these things, maybe the best thing is to
00:04:37.800treat them that way and to ignore them. And then you'll, you'll stop hearing about them.
00:04:45.760Maybe that, maybe that would be the best strategy. Um,
00:04:52.180certainly with Colin Kaepernick, if conservatives had just ignored for the most part, this,
00:05:00.300you know, his, his, uh, his protest of the national anthem, if they had just, I mean,
00:05:08.200you know, maybe not completely ignore it, but when it first had happened, when it first happened,
00:05:13.200if they had said, well, that I disagree with that, it's silly, it's stupid, it's disrespectful,
00:05:17.360make your point and then move on. And if the guy decides he wants to sit for the rest of the season,
00:05:23.360whatever it's, if he wants to do that, it's, it's just one guy. Right. And for so long with the,
00:05:31.260with the national anthem protest, it was only, it was Colin Kaepernick. It was a few other guys.
00:05:35.760It was just a few guys doing it. It only became this huge, enormous thing. And even then it was
00:05:41.960only that for a few weeks where you had a lot of players doing it, but that only happened after
00:05:46.660Donald Trump decided to purposely resurrect the issue, which had basically died. And then heading
00:05:53.200into the 2017 season, he decided to, to bring it back up again. And that's when it turned into this
00:05:59.320big thing. And even then it only lasted. It only, it only, it only was like that for a couple of weeks.
00:06:04.320Um, if we had not done that and we had just treated the protest as the silly childish thing that it was,
00:06:13.400then it would have, it would have died away in a few weeks. And here we'd be three years later,
00:06:19.080nobody would be talking about Colin Kaepernick. No one would even remember him. And, uh, and everyone
00:06:24.620would be better off. I think as for the boycott of, um, of Nike, which is going on right now,
00:06:34.000you know, to me, the, the, I'm not a big fan of our boycott culture. And this Nike boycott seems to
00:06:42.100kind of perfectly encapsulate the shallow virtue signaling character of our boycott culture.
00:06:50.180And that isn't now, don't get me wrong. There are plenty of really legitimate, good reasons
00:06:54.400to boycott Nike. Let's start with the fact, let's start with the, let's start with the, with the,
00:06:59.700here's the reason why I have always boycotted them or have mostly boycotted them. I don't have,
00:07:05.240like if I wanted to burn my, my, my Nike merchandise, which I wouldn't do anyway,
00:07:08.560because that's completely stupid, um, and wasteful. And if you don't want to have your Nike
00:07:14.880merchandise anymore, then what you could do is give it to a person who's poor and needs some clothing
00:07:19.580rather than burning your $100 shoes, maybe give them to someone. I mean, you could go to pretty
00:07:24.980much any city and find a homeless person on the street who doesn't have shoes, maybe give him the
00:07:29.500shoes. Just a thought. Um, anyway, I don't really have any Nike merchandise to, to burn. And the reason
00:07:36.120for that, I'll admit it's, it's because that stuff it's, it's ridiculously expensive. Like I'm not
00:07:41.000going to pay a premium to have a little check mark on my shoes. I'm just not going to pay that.
00:07:46.940Right. I could go, I mean, there's really, unless you're an athlete, there's no reason to spend more
00:07:52.680than 30 or 40 bucks on a pair of sneakers. Uh, if you're going and spending $120 on, on sneakers,
00:07:58.560because they have a check mark on them. I think that's pretty ridiculous. So I was boycotting
00:08:03.700them for that reason. Uh, it's more of a kind of practical utilitarian reason. Another good reason
00:08:08.200to boycott them is that they've used sweatshops. Um, they have manufactured this ridiculously overpriced
00:08:15.340merchandise on the backs of child slaves. It's a pretty good reason not to purchase from them.
00:08:19.980And that problem has not completely gone away. Um, there, there's a report recently last year
00:08:26.060that the company's workers in some countries still are dealing with, um, the denial of wages,
00:08:33.860sweltering heat, well over 90 degrees in the factories, um, unsafe conditions, physical abuse,
00:08:40.580and other problems as well. So that, that's a, a very sound basis for a boycott. Anytime a country,
00:08:48.120a company is doing something that actually hurts people, they deserve to be boycotted, right?
00:08:54.960Yet knowing about Nike's history with sweatshops. And I, I, look, I I'm sorry. I don't buy. I know
00:09:05.160there, I made this point a few days ago and some people said, well, I didn't know that Nike had
00:09:08.540a history of sweatshops. Come on. So it's been common knowledge for decades. You really didn't
00:09:14.880know that. I find that hard to believe. I think most of us understood that it had that history.
00:09:21.140Right. We also understand that Nike sells its merchandise, um, you know, has an unjustifiably
00:09:28.700high price for its merchandise. Yet knowing all that the current boycotters, if they really are
00:09:33.100boycotters, that is people who have been consistent customers of Nike and now no longer will be,
00:09:40.320that's what a boycott is. If you're boycotting Nike, but you're like me and you never really bought
00:09:44.400Nike anyway, well, that's not a boycott. You're, you're just continuing along with what you were
00:09:48.620already doing. Right. But if they really are boycotters, then that means that the boycotters
00:09:53.900gave their support to Nike in spite of the sweatshop problem, in spite of the, of the fact that the
00:09:58.640stuff is ridiculously high price, still gave their, um, support to Nike and now have only exploded in
00:10:04.500fury and sworn off the company because they saw a marketing poster. They didn't like, uh, you know,
00:10:10.220that would seem to raise a question about whether the boycott is really a campaign for seeking
00:10:17.300justice or if it's just another, you know, virtue signaling kind of mob to join, just another
00:10:23.540thing to do, uh, another outrage to be a part of, which, which, which I think are with so many
00:10:29.760boycotts, that's really what it's all about. I don't think it's necessary or wise to boycott
00:10:36.440every company that fails to perfectly represent our political and ideological views. Um, I don't think
00:10:44.300we need to do that. I think we should boycott companies who do harmful things and evil things.
00:10:50.660Companies like that should be boycotted. You could make a solid argument that Nike falls into that
00:10:55.060category, but you could have made that argument for the last like 30 years. And if you never made
00:10:59.940that argument before, and now you're suddenly making it, I think it's a fair question to ask
00:11:04.020why, what changed? All that said, I'll tell you what does annoy me about, um, the Nike campaign
00:11:14.460and in general, the reception that Kaepernick has gotten on the left. All right. So I've already told
00:11:20.820you what annoys me about how the right has approached Kaepernick. So let me, let me go over to the left.
00:11:25.500Now, what annoys me the most, um, is the cheapening of heroism, this attempt to make Kaepernick into some
00:11:38.560kind of heroic figure, uh, some kind of martyr. It, I mean, it's, it's ridiculous because he isn't that
00:11:47.120we're told now Nike's telling us he sacrificed everything, right? Sacrificed everything,
00:11:53.540which is quite a statement. And if you're telling me he sacrificed everything that I,
00:12:01.400we know he didn't sacrifice everything. So that's at least hyperbole. But if you're telling me that,
00:12:06.320that I should be able to look at least one thing that he did sacrifice. He didn't sacrifice
00:12:10.800everything. Did he at least sacrifice something? I don't think he did. I mean, let's, let's look at
00:12:17.840this for a moment. He was a quarterback, um, who was, you know, had been on the, on the decline in
00:12:25.960his career. Although his most re you know, the, the last season he played in the league, there was a,
00:12:31.020he would, there's a little bit of an uptick in his production, but generally speaking, you know,
00:12:36.440Kaepernick, there was about half of one season where Kaepernick was getting all this hype as he was the
00:12:40.540next, he was the next big thing in the NFL. This, this, uh, transformational quarterback.
00:12:45.000And all of that died off very quickly. And, um, he hit his peak and plummeted. That was his
00:12:53.320trajectory and kind of was at his peak, went to the Superbowl, he lost and it plummeted from there.
00:12:59.600Now, um, he was at best a second string quarterback talent. Once he left San Francisco,
00:13:09.380after choosing to opt out of his contract, by the way, so he chose to opt out of his contract after
00:13:16.800the whole protest thing, then, uh, he opted out of his contract. He decided to be a free agent.
00:13:23.340Um, and then he didn't end up on any other teams. Now, if this protest had not happened,
00:13:28.680he probably would have ended up on some team, probably on the bench somewhere,
00:13:33.520or potentially vying for a starting job in like Buffalo or Cleveland or something like that.
00:13:39.160And he would have made, he would have maybe gotten three or four years out of his career that way,
00:13:44.040uh, in mediocrity, you know, either maybe three, four or five years of riding the bench
00:13:50.800or of kind of being on the quarterback carousel in one of these markets like Buffalo or Cleveland.
00:13:55.740And then he would have retired and, and, uh, he would have been basically, basically forgotten
00:14:00.660instead. So that, that, that was the trajectory that he sacrificed instead though, he does this
00:14:10.040protest. And now it's true that, um, almost certainly part of the reason why he couldn't
00:14:18.100find another job in the NFL was because of the protest. He's not, he was not a top 10 quarterback
00:14:22.680talent, but he was at least a top 30 or 35 talent, which means that all things being equal,
00:14:27.620he would have found a job somewhere on a roster somewhere, but all things were not equal because
00:14:32.060teams are just not willing to take on the distraction, the attention, the hysteria for
00:14:37.960the sake of a second string quarterback. I mean, if, if you're going to, as, as an athlete,
00:14:43.840if you're going to bring all of that hysteria to a team, you better have enough talent to compensate.
00:14:49.900You got to have a lot of talent. You have, you have to be an absolute star to compensate
00:14:54.420for that. And he's just not that he doesn't have an, he didn't have enough talent to compensate
00:14:58.460for the distraction that he would bring. So, um, teams passed on him logically, which is,
00:15:06.360it's not the first example of that happening. The same thing happened to Tim Tebow, Tim Tebow,
00:15:11.800who never, I mean, although there were people who were offended by Tim Tebow for some ridiculous
00:15:16.540reason there, there was never any reason to be offended by the guy. Yeah. Tim Tebow liked to
00:15:20.680kneel also, but he didn't kneel during the Anthem, you know, kneel on the sideline, uh, or at
00:15:26.140celebrating a, a, a, a touchdown or something like that. Tim Tebow's big, big sin was that he was a
00:15:33.320devout Christian and he was known for his Christian faith. Um, but the bigger problem for teams with
00:15:39.020Tim Tebow is just that he, you know, he became this, this star who kind of transcended the sport
00:15:46.540itself and people loved him for reasons that had very little to do with, with football. So he just
00:15:52.260had a ton of attention on him. Um, yet he didn't have the talent to necessarily be a starting quarterback
00:15:58.580in the NFL consistently. So teams said to themselves, well, we're not, you know, we're going to bring
00:16:03.940this guy in, put him on the bench and then we're going to have all this attention on this one guy
00:16:08.300who's sitting on the bench and it's just a distraction. So team said, you know, we don't,
00:16:12.680we don't want that. And, um, so that's why Tebow had trouble finding other jobs in, in the NFL.
00:16:18.760There are plenty of examples that Des Bryan is a, you know, um, was one of the, one of the best wide
00:16:25.260receivers in the game. He's on the decline right now. Uh, front, you know, after, after leaving the
00:16:30.360Cowboys, he still hasn't found a job on, on another, on another team because of all the,
00:16:35.480because now he's very different from team, Tim Tebow, but he's a divisive kind of diva-like
00:16:39.700character. And, um, and there's a lot of just distraction and you get to, it's just a distraction
00:16:45.720and teams are not willing. They don't want to have that distraction on their roster, especially for a
00:16:51.360guy who can't compensate for the distraction by being an all-star talent. So that's, um,
00:16:59.060that's what happened at Kaepernick. And in fact, there were reports that there were a couple of,
00:17:04.020at least one team that was looking at Kaepernick as being possibly a second string quarterback.
00:17:07.520He turned down that offer. He also turned down offers to play for the, uh, the CFL,
00:17:12.700the Canadian football league. So this is not someone who's desperate to go and play football
00:17:18.200somewhere. Comparing again to Tim Tebow, who he tried desperately to get on NFL, NFL roster and stay
00:17:23.960on one. He couldn't. And so then he goes and plays baseball. I mean, this is a guy that just wants to
00:17:28.120play a sport. He just wants to play ball. It's really what he wants to do. And so he'll, he'll,
00:17:32.600he'll take any opportunity he can get. Kaepernick has not done that. It seems like Kaepernick is not,
00:17:37.420it's just not a ball player. He's not interested in playing ball. He's more interested in, um,
00:17:42.020in being a kind of, uh, you know, being this savior figure that he has turned himself into.
00:17:48.460So he chose to sacrifice three or four years of bench warming or possibly starting for, um,
00:17:57.520some mid-market team. And in exchange, he has international fame, accolades from the media,
00:18:07.360a lucrative sponsorship deal and other things. And that's a heck of a, of a nice trade. I would say,
00:18:13.420I mean, I would take that trade. Wouldn't you? And that's why this isn't martyrdom. Okay. This
00:18:19.040isn't heroism. Kaepernick is neither a hero nor some sort of great historic villain. He's just a guy
00:18:26.700who expressed his opinion and he was punished for it, but he was also massively rewarded for it.
00:18:32.700And the reward, I think way outweighs the punishment. And so that's all, but that's not,
00:18:39.100that's not sacrifice and that's not heroism. Um, that's a lot of different things. It's,
00:18:45.820I think among other things, it's also a calculation on his part where he had to choose. Do I really
00:18:51.580want to try to stay in the league and, and play football or do I want to go in and, you know,
00:18:56.540make it and do this and have this be my, my brand and build on that brand as the socially conscious,
00:19:04.440uh, you know, warrior for racial equality kind of thing. And he chose that, that path and it's paid
00:19:13.300off for pretty well. It seems like our culture, you know, in our culture, we are just desperate for
00:19:21.720heroes. Um, we're desperate for people to look up to. And so we select guys like Colin Kaepernick.
00:19:30.700And on the other end, as part of this overall seeking of identity, we're also desperate for
00:19:38.940easy villains that we can hate. And so we also select guys like Colin Kaepernick. So
00:19:44.200I think that's where this comes from. That's why, even though Colin Kaepernick is, he's just some
00:19:49.620quarterback who was on his way into relative NFL obscurity, yet he kneels for the anthem a couple
00:19:57.740times. And he becomes this massive figure that we're talking about for three years. And why is
00:20:03.160that? It's just because it became this really, he became this really easy, unchallenging kind of
00:20:11.920mascot for both sides. So on one side, they were able to take him and turn him into some kind of
00:20:19.640hero. On the other side, they could turn him into a villain and it's easy. It's unchallenging.
00:20:24.080And on both ends, it's just ridiculous. Because he's neither of those things. He's a guy with an
00:20:30.260opinion who made a decision and a calculation paid off well for him. That's all.
00:20:38.420All right. And yet here I am talking about him as well. So I'm part of the problem. Never claimed
00:20:44.440not to be so. Thanks for watching, everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.