Harrison Butker, a kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, is in a heap of trouble these days. The NFL has issued a statement distancing itself from him, there is a petition at Change.org calling for him to be released, and outraged commentators across our fair land have lined up to condemn him and declare him unworthy to be in the company of decent people. What Butker did to get all this abuse is a sad indication of what life is like in this Age of Absurdity.
If this were a sane society, you might get the impression that Butker did something like take a knee for the National Anthem in protest against an imaginary “systemic racism.” Or you might think that he mortally offended his employers by likening the NFL draft to a slave auction, saying: “What they don’t want you to understand is what’s being established is a power dynamic. Before they put you on the field, teams poke, prod, and examine you searching for any defect that might affect your performance. No boundary respect. No dignity left intact.”
Yet Harrison Butker did not do those things; Colin Kaepernick did. Butker’s outrageous crime was that he gave a commencement speech at Benedictine College, and took aim at some of the most cherished idols of our age. He encouraged the graduates to take pride in themselves and their accomplishments: “Not the deadly sins sort of Pride that has an entire month dedicated to it, but the true God-centered pride that is cooperating with the holy ghost to glorify him.” As far as leftists are concerned, to criticize Pride Month would be akin to ripping up Betsy Ross’ American flag while standing in front of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and Butker wasn’t finished.
Addressing female graduates, Butker said: “It is you, the women, who have had the most diabolic lies told to you. Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.” Uh oh. As Greta Thunberg would say, Butker, how dare you? How could you possibly conceive of endorsing an idea that has been taken for granted throughout human history in virtually all the cultures of the world, and has only been controverted in the West for the past two centuries?
The NFL wasn’t standing for this. The values of our society had to be affirmed against this renegade. The league’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, Jonathan Beane, announced Wednesday that “Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity. His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”
Yes, of course it does. Diversity is our strength, and all that. War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is our strength, too. What is striking about Beane’s statement is not so much that the NFL has now distanced itself from a concept that most human beings took for granted as axiomatically true for millennia, but that it saw fit to condemn Butker, but not Kaepernick. When Kaepernick was taking a knee for the Anthem and spouting anti-American rhetoric, no NFL official, least of all the chief diversity and inclusion officer, saw fit to remind the world that Kaep was acting “in his personal capacity.”
The league didn’t dare, because even though the people who watch NFL games are far more likely to agree with Harrison Butker than with Colin Kaepernick, the league also knows that the people who own the culture today are all on the left. If the NFL had remained tolerantly silent about Butker and distanced itself from Kaepernick, it would have been looking at picket lines outside NFL games, denunciations of the league as racist, and even boycotts.
Related: Kaepernick BEGS for Job on NFL Slave Plantation, Ignores the Elephant in the Room
Even after the Bud Light debacle, the NFL knows that if condemns Butker, some football fans may grumble, and a few angry tweets may go out, but that will be about it. The league will face nothing like the possibly mortal crisis that it thinks it would have faced if it had criticized Kaepernick. Does the left really have this kind of cultural power? Yes. Not in terms of numbers and the support of the American people, but in terms of influence over corporations and the power to embarrass them and destroy their reputation if they start thinking about leaving the reservation.
Still, if Butker is released, the NFL should get the Bud Light treatment. NFL games should be as empty as home games of the Oakland Athletics. This is the only way to show the corporations that the rules are changing, and that the battle for America’s soul isn’t over yet.