Equivalency
Roseanne can say what she likes, but ABC didn’t have to keep paying her to say it.
Colin Kaepernick can say what he likes, but the NFL didn’t have to keep paying him to say it.
Neither was robbed of a fundamental right to speak, because each was in a contractual arrangement with a private employer.
I didn’t watch “Roseanne” — ever — and I don’t watch the NFL — ever. So I can’t get worked up about this. There is no free-speech lesson to be learned here.
The true lesson is this: Every large corporation and organization is now going to have to decide whether it is red, blue, or white.
If you’re, say, NASCAR, and your base is red, feel free to say what you think so long as it aligns with red.
If you’re, say, Starbucks, and your base is blue, feel free to say what you think so long as it aligns with blue.
If your base isn’t explicitly red or blue, say nothing having to do with red or blue.
That’s the true lesson.
May 30th, 2018 at 4:15 am
So may we assume that ROSEANNE could find a new home on the Fox Channel?
What I find interesting your post is that somewhere, somehow, sometime, we have come to associate Red/GOP/Trump with a lack of sympathy for minorities, if not actual racism. Is the party of Lincoln dividing the house we live in?
May 30th, 2018 at 4:42 pm
We have “come to associate” the GOP with a “lack of sympathy” because it’s a strategy they’ve been pursuing on and off since 1968 and Nixon’s Southern Strategy. Not all of them — Jack Kemp tried to push back on that, and I think John McCain deserves some credit here, and I remember Ronald Reagan’s aspirational language being directed toward everyone, and, more recently, the never-Trumpers are rather appalled by what they’re seeing and hearing — but with those and other exceptions, that’s been an undercurrent to the talking points.
July 21st, 2018 at 5:38 am
I believe that we’ve come to associate the GOP with a lack of sympathy because it’s a DEMOCRAT strategy, not Republican. Why would any party aspire to be heartless? It’s been shown that Republicans tend to more generous toward charities than Democrats. And, Dan, it was Southern Democrats who opposed school integration and conducted lynchings. Apparently revisionist history is successful.
July 22nd, 2018 at 7:17 am
Please provide the data showing that Republicans are more generous toward charities than Democrats; I’d like to see that. If it exists.