Thigh-High Politics is an Op-Ed column by Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca that breaks down the news, provides resources for the resistance, and just generally refuses to accept toxic nonsense.

During a football game in August of 2016, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat during the national anthem to protest police brutality. He started kneeling instead of sitting after he met with former Army Green Beret Nate Boyer. At the time, Kaepernick couldn’t have known that quiet action would unfurl into a landmark battle in the ongoing culture war led by Donald Trump, if only because Barack Obama was president at the time, but he did want to start a conversation about the violent, institutionalized means by which black lives are too often disregarded in this country.

Patriotism is about love for one’s country. Kaepernick risked his career — and you’ll note that he is effectively blackballed this season — through his efforts to draw attention to the police killings of unarmed black men in America. This is a despicable mark of shame on our national moral character, and Kaepernick sat, then kneeled, to push us toward the need for redemption. All of this has been obscured by yet another temper tantrum by our commander in chief.

Fast-forward from Kaepernick’s initial demonstration in August 2016 to an Alabama rally Trump spoke at earlier this month for the since-defeated senatorial candidate Luther Strange. Perhaps distracted by a shiny thing, Trump’s speech ventured into sports: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'get that son of a b*tch off the field right now, he’s fired?'" he said.

Then, the president seemed struck by his own commentary and, of course, began tweeting more thoughts on the topic. His feud with the NFL eventually expanded to the NBA, when he disinvited the league’s champions from attending the White House, after Warriors point guard Stephen Curry expressed hesitation about the visit. This manufactured “feud” has only continued to escalate.

As part of his Twitter rant, Trump issued a ruling on the proper conduct during the national anthem. “Great solidarity for our National Anthem and for our Country. Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable,” he wrote in one of the many, many tweets he has fired off on this topic. “The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race,” he wrote in another. “It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!”

In short, Trump has spent the past week using the concept of national devotion for personal gain. Patriotism doesn’t belong to conservatives, and it certainly doesn’t belong to Donald Trump, a man who has insulted war heroes and accused the military of theft, and who ran an entire campaign based on America no longer being great. In his typical way of scrambling the dialogue, Trump is trying to push the conversation away from protest to its direct object: the flag. He has set up a dichotomy for NFL players, in which kneeling or not kneeling dictates love for America, and it comes with dire consequences. One can either align with him, and refuse to take part in protest, or unleash the wrath of the White House, which we saw in full force in the attacks on Jemele Hill and ESPN mere weeks ago. Regardless of your position on national anthem positions, make no mistake about this: The president is manipulating the symbol of the flag and corresponding concept of patriotism as an extension of his power, and that’s about as un-American as it gets.