Delicate Snowflake Mike Pence Left a Football Game After Players Kneeled

Mike Pence and his wife Karen attended the Colts/49ers game Sunday, but left before the game started after being *super* offended by some players’ decision to kneel during the National Anthem.

First of all, that is too much ask. Because it’s asking players to give up their right to free speech and peaceful protest.

https://twitter.com/theyearofelan/status/917079058659401729

The political theatre on display here is both over the top and totally predictable. Does anyone think Mike Pence didn’t go to this game for the sole purpose of leaving and tweeting about? There’s no way he didn’t know players would kneel, meaning he went through all this just to feign shock and outrage.

https://twitter.com/mikefreemanNFL/status/917079514613764096

https://twitter.com/owillis/status/917086955359358976

Trump came out and proudly admitted that yes, it was planned. By him.

In addition to being a disgusting, disingenuous publicity stunt, it was also a total waste of resources. Because this isn’t just some guy going to a football game. When the Vice President goes to a football game, a lot of effort and taxpayers’ money goes into that.

https://twitter.com/Kyle_Feldscher/status/917079966822600704

https://twitter.com/PalmerReport/status/917094739190734850

https://twitter.com/PalmerReport/status/917101345940877313

Perhaps the most upsetting part of this is that Pence and Trump are choosing to perpetuate the false narrative that these players’ protests have anything at all to do with the flag or the military. They are protesting police brutality and the murder of black Americans. Pence seems smart enough to understand that. Trump believes whatever Fox News tells him, so maybe he really does think this is somehow about the troops. Even if he does believe it, that doesn’t make it true. It makes him willfully ignorant.

https://twitter.com/AngryBlackLady/status/917095201428135936

Also, it’s a small point compared to the attempt to paint football players as unpatriotic villains while redirecting conversations away from police profiling and brutality, but can we please take a moment to acknowledge that the Pences couldn’t even be bothered to take a new selfie? They just slapped a filter on this one from 2014.

What a load of fake news.

https://twitter.com/aparnapkin/status/917081800492634114

(image: Shutterstock)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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