Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump described the NFL as “soft” during a campaign rally in Reno, Nev., on Sunday.
“Football has become soft like our country has become soft,” Trump said to applause, according to the Washington Post.
Trump told the crowd that while he was watching the AFC Wild Card game Saturday there were “so many flags.”
“The referees, they want to all throw flags so their wives see them at home,” Trump quipped. “‘Oh, there’s my husband.’ It’s true. ‘He just broke up — he just gave a 15-yard penalty on one of the most beautiful tackles made this year.’ Right?”
The billionaire claimed the lack of roughness in the game today has made the game “weak” and “boring.”
The NFL has in recent years attempted to address concussions after an increasing number of players have suffered from memory and cognitive issues.
What makes an individual – or a country – “soft”?
Trump does not explain his metaphor all the way; so we’re left to speculate.
On the simplest level, when Donald Trump accuses America of becoming “soft,” he’s talking about succumbing to fear.
In football, he suggests, there’s too much fear over injury. In American government, he’d probably say there’s too much fear about doing what it takes to destroy ISIS, or stand up to abusive trading practices with fascist governments like China.
What gives rise to such inflated fear? If we go a step further, “soft” refers to an irrational fear of what others think.
Consider football. The kind of people attracted to professional football are not “soft,” no more so today than 30 years ago. They are willing to play a hard, tough game, and they play to win, as they should.
But the people in the corporate and p.r.-oriented business of football are concerned with, yes, lawsuits, but – deeper than that – with appearances.
Appearances to whom? To some unnamed source. To an abstract “someone” who might judge you as unkind, mean, insensitive, or otherwise incorrect in your behavior. Yes, this is softness. It’s also irrational.
It’s not just with football. It’s with everything. Everyone, whether in ordinary daily life or big business/big government/big media/big academia, seems concerned with what others will think of them. “I can’t be perceived as racist. I can’t be perceived as mean. I can’t be perceived as against health care for all. I can’t be perceived as too hard on children. I can’t be perceived as insensitive to the transgendered. I can’t be perceived as fill-in-the-blank-here.”
It’s a constant succumbing to that fear which makes an individual – or a nation of individuals – “soft.”
Being “soft” means appeasing the emotions or wishes of people, based on standards which make no sense and that you fully understand make no sense. Yet you give in anyway.
That’s what’s happening in America, and this explains so much of Donald Trump’s appeal, even among those who dislike many things about him. Whatever else is true of Donald Trump, he is the embodiment of utter political incorrectness.
Reasonable people are sick and tired of walking around on eggshells for the sake of people who are not right about things. Many people are – rightly – sick and tired of feeling they must subvert their own minds and conclusions for the sake of some unnamed others.
America is now a “soft” dictatorship. Our president no longer respects the separation of powers, nor even the rule of law. Congress and courts, for the most part, passively comply.
But we’re not yet a full-blown dictatorship. In America, you are still, for now, more or less free to speak your mind in a wide variety of contexts. We are not yet China or North Korea.
America will only become a free country again once enough people choose to become “hard.” Donald Trump, in his own hostile and indecorous way, reminds us that we still belong to ourselves.
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