Mike Pence, a cauliflower that was once victimized by the movie Mulan, claimed that he walked out of today’s 49ers-Colts game, because the players supposedly disrespected the troops during the rote nationalistic pre-game ceremony. While the Colts stood arm-in-arm during the anthem, a reported 23 members of the 49ers took a knee.
While national anthem demonstrations have been intended to protest police violence, which disproportionately affects black Americans, Pence has said that there is “too much of this talk of institutional bias or racism in law enforcement.”
Update (2:26 p.m. ET): Donald Trump, who was probably feeling cranky that his VP was getting more attention than him, claims that actually, this was his idea, and he told Pence to leave the football game if any players kneeled for the anthem. Is this more or less childish if it were true?
Update (6:11 p.m. ET): 49ers safety Eric Reid had some smart insight on this whole stupid charade:
“My honest reaction … Does anybody know the last time he’s been to a football game?” Reid said, via a video from Jennifer Lee Chan of Niners Nation. “With that being said, he tweeted out a three-year old photo of him at a Colts game so with the information I have the last time he was at a Colts game was three years ago. So this looks like a PR stunt to me. He knew our team has had the most players protest. He knew that we were probably going to do it again. This is what systemic oppression looks like. A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple of things out and leaves the game with an attempt to thwart our efforts. Based on the information I have, that’s the assumption I’ve made.”