The New York Times’ apology for publishing Sen. Tom Cotton’s Op-Ed, and the NFL’s repudiation of Drew Brees’ commitment to honoring the American flag, are inflection points that do not bode well for the United States.
We have observed that groupthink is a serious problem in America today: that it distorts our public dialogue and debate on issues ranging from the coronavirus to law enforcement and public safety, race relations, and other matters of public policy.
Intertwined with groupthink is intellectual intolerance, closed-mindedness, and an unwillingness to allow for the legitimacy of different points of view that may not accord with our own.
Groupthink prevents people from thinking outside of the proverbial box, while intellectual intolerance and closed-mindedness punish them for even thinking about doing so.
This is, obviously, dangerous because it stifles fresh thinking, creativity and innovation. It also is completely contrary to everything that the United States of America was founded upon.
Ours is a classically liberal republic that was founded upon classically liberal values such as freedom of thought, the right to private property, and free enterprise.
The First Amendment prevents the government from abridging our freedom of speech. However, the values that underlie the First Amendment—intellectual tolerance, open-mindedness, robust and vigorous debate, et al.—have long suffused American institutions and American society more generally, especially at the elite level.
Not anymore. Increasingly, it seems, the American elite are abandoning classically liberal values for more contemporary illiberal and authoritarian values.
Thus freedom of thought no longer is seen as an unalloyed good with inherent and intrinsic worth. Instead, speech is judged by how it makes us feel—or, more importantly, how it makes politically important groups and constituencies feel.
Is the speech or thought dangerous or politically incorrect? Does it hurt or harm people? Does it promote hate? Does it violate our communal norms and sense of propriety and justice? Does it threaten our “safe space” and ability to contribute and function to the commonweal?
If so, then, I’m sorry, but your “freedom of speech” ends because it is in contradistinction to the “public good.”
Censorship. Of course, the illiberal authoritarians never admit that they are censors. They correctly note that the First Amendment applies to government, not to institutions and individuals. While this is technically true from a strictly legal perspective, it also misses the point:
The freedom that we Americans enjoy has never depended solely or even mainly on what the government does or does not do. Instead, our freedom has depended on what institutions do—especially our elite, private sector institutions in business, academia, and the media.
Indeed, these institutions serve as our cultural arbiters. They set the tone for what is and is not permissible.
And, for most of American history, they championed classically liberal values. That they increasingly refuse to do so is highly disconcerting and worrisome. Consider, for instance, two big news items that illustrate this troubling trend:
Item One. The New York Times this week published an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) arguing that, in accordance with the Insurrection Act, President Trump should deploy the active duty military or National Guard to cities and states plagued with violent rioting.
The purpose of such a deployment, the Senator explained, would be to restore domestic peace and tranquility and ensure that peaceful protesters can exercise their First Amendment rights without fear of bodily harm or injury.
Agree or disagree, this is a perfectly fair, reasonable, and legitimate argument—especially given that people have been shot, killed, beaten, and run over by violent rioters in the past week.
Yet, Cotton’s op-ed has provoked howls of outrage on social media from dozens of New York Times reporters who ludicrously assert (reportedly with a straight face) that Cotton’s argument endorses military occupation and state violence, promotes hate, and puts black Times reporters in danger.
This is absurd and nonsensical. Yet, as a result of this hullabaloo, the Times has gone to extraordinary lengths to explain and justify its decision to publish Cotton’s op-ed, while giving undue deference to its illiberal authoritarian critics and employees.
Group Think. And now, amazingly, after more than 800 of the paper’s staffers signed a letter protesting the op-ed’s publication, the Times has issued a statement saying the essay fell short of the newspaper’s standards and should not have been published.
“We’ve examined the piece and the process leading up to its publication,” Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, said in a statement.
“This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an op-ed that did not meet our standards. As a result, we’re planning to examine both short-term and long-term changes, to include expanding our fact-checking operation and reducing the number of op-eds we publish.”
In other words: the mob has spoken and we get it. We will appease the mob and aspire never to repeat this “mistake” by publishing “dangerous” and “wrongheaded” op-eds.
Item Two: New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees was asked by Yahoo Finance about the “take-a-knee” protests by some players in the National Football league.
These players refuse to stand for the playing of the national anthem. Instead, they take a knee, ostensibly to protest “systemic racism” and police brutality in law enforcement.
Brees’ response:
Well, that’s not an easy question to answer… God created us all equal. We all have a responsibility to love each other and to respect other. I try to live my life by two basic Christian fundamentals:
Love your Lord with all your heart, mind and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself. And I think that we accomplish greater things as a community, as a society, and as a country when we do it together…
These are trying times for our country… I think we all recognize the changes that need to take place…
We need to find ways to work together to provide opportunities for one another: to continue to move our country forward to a bigger and better place.
Brees then was a follow-up question about the “take-a-knee” protest.
“Now it’s coming back to the fore,” said Dan Roberts,
and a lot of people expect that we will see players kneeling again when the NFL season starts. I’m curious: how you think the NFL will and should respond to that… And what is your responsibility as a leader in times like this…?
Brees’ response:
Well, I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.
Let me just tell you what I feel when the national anthem is played and when I look at the flag of the United States.
I envision my two grandfathers, who fought for this country during World War II, one in the Army and one in the Marine Corps: both risking their lives to protect our country and to try and make our country and this world a better place.
So every time [that] I stand with my hand over my heart looking at that flag and singing the national anthem, that’s what I think about.
And, in many cases, it brings me to tears, thinking about all that has been sacrificed—not just [by] those in the military, but for that matter, [by] those throughout the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point [emphasis added].
And is everything right about our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long way to go.
But I think what you do by standing there and showing respect for the flag with your hand over your heart is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together.
We can all do better. And that we are all part of the solution.
This is a perfectly reasonable and fair-minded point of view shared by millions of Americans and military veterans, black and white, who believe that the American flag and national anthem are and ought to be unifying symbols for Americans of all hues, colors, and ethnicities.
Intellectual Intolerance. Yet, Brees’ response has provoked howls of outrage—as if he had just pledged his allegiance to the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan rather than extol the example of the Civil Rights movement, which ended Jim Crow and ensured black voting rights, as well as the example of his two grandfathers who enlisted in the U.S. military to help fight World War II.
Hall of Fame tight end Shanon Sharpe, for instance, could barely contain his contempt for Brees. Sharpe issued a long filibuster-like rant on the Fox News television show Undisputed in which he called Brees’ remarks “insulting,” and said that Brees’ attitude is what has made “the black fight [for equality] so hard” or difficult.
Brees, Sharpe added, should retire from football because he no longer can command the respect of his black teammates.
Retired Pro Bowl safety and ESPN analyst Ryan Clark declared that Brees showed he “doesn’t care that black people are being killed without justice being served… I’m not surprised,” he said. “I already knew who he was.”
“He just doesn’t care,” agreed All-Pro nose tackle Damon Harrison Sr.
Brees’ teammate, Malcolm Jenkins, told him that:
People who share your sentiments, who express those, and [who] push them throughout the world, the airwaves, are the problem. And it’s unfortunate, because I considered you a friend.
I looked up to you. You’re somebody who I had a great deal of respect for. But sometimes, you should shut the f— up.
Dissent. Of course, it defies all reason and understanding to conclude from Brees’ comments that he “just doesn’t care” about the difficulties and obstacles that confront African Americans. But what’s noteworthy about the reaction from many of Brees’ peers is their rank intolerance for contrary points of view.
You either agree with them about taking a knee during the national anthem (ostensibly to protest “systemic racism” and allegedly widespread “police brutality”), or you are indifferent to, or opposed to, fairness, justice, and racial equality.
They will brook no dissent. Different perspectives are not just mistaken or misguided; they are morally repugnant and utterly beyond the pale.
Maoist-Like Recantation. Sadly, Brees has since apologized and recanted, and is now obediently reciting the left-wing, “progressive” creed—to wit: “WE ARE THE PROBLEM,” his wife dutifully wrote on Instagram, as if she had just come out of a Maoist struggle session. “We are not doing enough. I am sorry. We are sorry.”
“We must stop talking about the flag and shift our attention to the real issues of system racial injustice, economic oppression, police brutality, and judicial and prison reform,” Brees dutifully wrote.
NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, meanwhile, issued a video statement in which he felt compelled to state that the league “condemns racism and the systematic oppression of black people.
We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest.
We, the National Football League, believe Black Lives Matter.
I personally protest with you and want to be a part of the much needed change in this country.
Without black players there would be no National Football League. And the protests around the country are emblematic of the centuries of silence, inequality, and oppression of black players, coaches, fans, and staff…
The irony is that center-left elites say we need to have “an honest dialogue” about race in America, only they don’t really mean that. Because the minute the “dialogue” doesn’t proceed according to how they’ve scripted it, they browbeat the dissenters into submission.
Thus we don’t have an “honest dialogue.” Instead, we have a dishonest monologue, with the dissenters staying quiet because they don’t wish to be libeled as racists and bigots.
Shannon Sharpe, though, is right about one thing: the American flag is supposed to stand for something. It’s supposed to stand for the classically liberal values—including, notably, freedom of thought—upon which our country was founded.
Unfortunately, those values are now under assault by illiberal authoritarians who refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of points of view that differ from their own.
And when highly influential institutions such as the New York Times and National Football League abandon these values because of a zealous commitment to what they perceive to be a greater good—in this case, racial equality—they endanger not just that allegedly greater good, but the entire American experiment in (classically liberal) self-government.
A republic if you can keep it, warned Benjamin Franklin. America has survived many trials and tribulations to be sure; but increasingly, it looks like Franklin’s warning was prophetic, and not because of anything Trump or the government did or did not do.
Instead, the fault lies with us, the citizenry, and especially our elite, who are rapidly abandoning their commitment to the classically liberal, foundational values that have been our guideposts for more than two centuries.
Most republics have ended up on the ash heap of history because they rotted from within. There is no guarantee that the American republic will be any different.
Feature photo credit: CBS News (Sen. Tom Cotton) and Black Sports Online (Drew Brees).
