By Erick Erickson

By blasting the NFL for the knee protests, Trump literally got a bunch of millionaires to kneel before him. He got the left, which last week wanted to boycott the NFL, to tune in and cheer on the teams. He steered the media conversation away from Puerto Rico and focused it like a laser on flag protests with which most Americans disagree.

And what of those who took the knee? They did not stop a single young man from getting shot in Chicago. They did not raise a single soul out of poverty. They did not stop any child from being abused. They did not help a single Puerto Rican facing the destruction of their livelihood. But they made the players feel good about themselves.

They divided the nation. They brought politics into something most Americans turn to in order to shut out politics. That just increased the divisiveness of it. And the homeless vets in the country stayed homeless. Donald Trump stayed President. And more Americans tuned out of another area of the national conversation where they used to go to escape the yelling.

The players could use their millions and their names to raise real issues. They could have marched in the streets. They could have used their fame to draw media attention to the starving. The could have joined together and flown to Chicago and demanded an end to young men killing young men and worked to end gangs. They could have used their fame to connect with those young men and mentor them.

Instead, they put their knee on the ground before playing a game to make money. All it did was further divide the nation. Instead of trying to find a way to steer us all to our better angels and focus on the injustices and problems that really do exist, the millionaires decided to protest the flag and anthem of the country that made them millionaires and cheered them on.

They, led by Colin Kaepernick, took the easy way out. They virtue signaled without doing the hard labor of affecting real change.

And as for the President? He couldn’t get Obamacare repealed and he cannot get Luther Strange elected to the Senate. So he picked a fight to distract from what he cannot do and fueled even more division. Meanwhile, the shootings in Chicago continue, the division between urban and rural America grows, and the people of Puerto Rico still sit in the dark.