Dan Le Batard ignored a directive from ESPN President Jimmy Vicaro and went on a nearly four-minute diatribe against President Trump as well as his own network after supporters at a Trump rally in North Carolina chanted “send her back” in reference to Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Omar fled her native Somalia with her family and spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp before finally securing asylum in the United States in 1995.

“This felt un-American what happened last night … It’s not the America that my parents aimed to get for us, for exiles, for brown people,” Le Batard said Thursday on his ESPN radio show which is also broadcasted on television. “There’s a racial division in this country that’s being instigated by the president and we here at ESPN haven’t had the stomach for that fight because Jemele [Hill] did some things on Twitter and you saw what happened after that and then here, all of a sudden, nobody talks politics on anything unless they use one of these sports figures as a meat shield in the most cowardly possible way to discuss these subjects.”

Le Batard was referencing Jemele Hill, the former ESPN employee who routinely attacked President Trump and saw her role at the network reduced until she finally left in 2018. Le Batard also went on to say what happened at the rally is “deeply offensive,” that Trump “(goes) after brown people and black people and minorities,” and endorsed a tweet from FS1 personality Nick Wright which called the chant “obviously racist.” Co-host Jon “Stugotz” Weiner and producer Billy Gil appeared to be uncomfortable with the subject matter and did not appear to weigh in from the video clip provided here.

When his show started on Friday, Le Batard was conspicuously absent and did not appear until MLB analyst Tim Kurkjian came on a little over an hour later. And, according to a report from Fox News, ESPN sent a memo to staffers on Friday (including Le Batard himself) reminding them to steer clear of purely political commentary.

Omar also responded by calling the president a “racist” and “fascist.”

From Le Batard’s own words, it is clear he knew he was violating company policy when he said what he did. But that’s for ESPN to deal with.

The troubling matter here is that thanks to the continued obsession from many on the left with the color of people’s skin and what’s between their legs (among other immutable characteristics), any criticism of a member of a “hands-off” group will be met with any one of “ist” suffix word-grenades hurled at the offending party, context and content of character be damned.

While it is certainly possible that some folks who were chanting “send her back” about Omar truly have a disdain toward all people with brown skin or all women or all Muslims, I think the much more plausible scenario is that they have disdain for someone who has repeatedly and willfully made anti-Semitic statements, bashed the country who so graciously provided asylum to her and her family, and wants to turn the United States into a third world socialist hellhole via open borders and freebies provided to all.

The last of these issues makes it all the more surprising for Le Batard to run to Omar’s defense considering his parents were Cuban exiles. To be fair, Le Batard did criticize Colin Kaepernick in 2016 for his apparent support of Fidel Castro.

Bottom line? Omar’s constant identity politics and values do not comport with the vast majority of Trump supporters who believe in hard work, law & order, and a society that rewards people based on merit and not skin color, gender, sexuality, etc.

Too many on the left like to act as though we are all still living in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 where minorities are relentlessly persecuted and only white males have any chance of success. While our society still isn’t perfect, we certainly have come a very long way from those days.

At any given time, I can look out my back yard and see my Hispanic stepdaughter playing with her white friend from next door and black friend from across the street. All of us live together in peace and harmony with no issues, thanks to a value system by us parents that promotes hard work and personal responsibility. Once values like this are instilled, one’s race, gender, sexuality, etc. become a completely inconsequential attribute.

The time is long past for us on the correct side of this ideological battle to reframe the conversation…