The American people are showing common sense by expressing anger over NFL players protesting during the national anthem, acknowledging that demonstrations which insult the flag are permissible under the Frist Amendment, but stating clearly that so is a public response that says you are wrong for denigrating your country, Bill O'Reilly wrote in an op-ed in The Hill on Monday.
O'Reilly, the former host of "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News, said that the NFL, seeing surveys which show that some 65 percent of adults believe players kneeling during the national anthem are misguided, know they are endangering their industry's profits by angering their customers.
He said that team owners "are caught in tight spots. They don't want politics on the field or in the locker room, but they are also loath to alienate dissenting star players."
But O'Reilly predicts that "the protests will diminish quickly even though the far-left media loves insulting the flag and country," because the vast majority of the public sees "this rank propaganda for what it is — an exaggeration of social ills in order to push a political agenda."
He acknowledged that there is oppression in the U.S., as no country is perfect, but that there is no deliberate plan to keep minorities down and most Americans are proud of a history that "freed billions from fascism and communism, and generally gives more people more opportunity to succeed than any other country on earth."
O'Reilly insisted that NFL owners, together with "their partners, the TV networks," are already trying to play down the controversy by not showing the kneeling players or not broadcasting the national anthem at all, instead covering it with commercial or in studio commentary, or by devising "various contortions to foster 'unity' by linking arms during the anthem or kneeling before the singing begins and then rising.
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