WHY NIKE’S CAPITULATION TO KAEPERNICK MATTERS:

Colin Kaepernick has made a fantastic living out of protesting the America flag. That’s fine. No political speech should be inhibited, not even pseudo-intellectual historical revisionism. But let’s stop pretending that kneeling during the national anthem at sporting events is really about “respecting the flag” or criminal justice reform or any fixable policy problem.

Whatever the underlying causes for Kaepernick’s popularity—some of them certainly legitimate—these protests are acts of contempt toward an irredeemable nation created in sin. This view of our founding is an increasingly popular position on the left. And if it ever takes hold in mainstream American life, we’re in real trouble.

After pictures of Nike’s Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July edition were released online, Kaepernick, who “sacrificed everything” by making tens of millions of dollars as a corporate-sponsored activist, complained to company officials that the Betsy Ross flag on the back of a proposed sneaker was an offensive symbol because of its “connection to an era of slavery.”

That’s true, but not in the way that Kaepernick thinks: