A gaggle of white guys have come out to support Trump’s war against NFL players who have protested with various gestures during the national anthem. Americans have fought and died for the flag that these athletes disrespect is a constant reframe. Hell ya. Among them have been millions of Black Americans, from the American Revolution to Afghanistan and Iraq today who died, without ever fully participating in the benefits the flag is supposed to represent. Not a single white critic or news reporter ever mentions that.

Rand Paul declared that no matter what, he thinks that this is the best country in the world in which to live. That’s probably because he is a wealthy white male surgeon elected official. He hasn’t ever sat crouched in his car with his hands on the steering wheel facing an abusive cop for no good reason, except as an excuse to harass a Black man and search his car. No doubt, every one of these athletes has, at least once. An African American man might well do better in Canada, for one, where there is a comparable standard of living and respect for diversity but without the police harassment and institutional racism that Black people in this country face on a daily basis.

This is another instance where the white man has decided what is an “appropriate” form of protest. Black Americans don’t need help with that; we keep trying every available avenue to accomplish our goal permanently, not the half step of progress forward and two steps back we’ve seen through the country’s history. Hell, we’re back battling the KKK and white supremacists supported by the President just as it was for over a hundred years. If they think it’s disrespectful, so be it.

And yet, I submit that taking a knee is honoring the promise of the American flag and praying that it will finally live up to the values it purportedly represents, applying them equally to every person in the country. It follows in the tradition of nonviolent protest that inspired the Boston Tea Party. Despite centuries of constantly being rebuffed, Black Americans have stayed in a country that has repeatedly told us that we weren’t wanted; we keep plugging away, trying to make America a better country by living up to its oft repeated ideals. We are still hopeful that true freedom and equality for every citizen will one day happen, even as we watch the ferocious backlash from two terms of a Black president that supposedly ushered in the era of “post-racialism”, whatever the hell that was. Now we know it is epitomized by Make Whites Dominant Again, as if that hasn’t always been.

Why is that more disrespectful of tradition than 45 deciding he won’t divest his business holdings as the Constitution dictates or publish his tax returns or engaging in a political campaign for his next term from day 1 of taking the office of his first? Kaepernick’s display has all the elements of respect: he is attentive to the flag, he quietly suspends all other activity. Standing is the only missing element. White critics have decided that makes it disrespectful; there are many others, including myself, who submit that it is not. It is the position of a supplicant, asking for his prayers to be heard and answered. According to the First Amendment, created by the Founders to limit government’s power against citizens, every individual has the right to free speech anytime and anywhere, even multimillionaire athletes on a football field. But being a multimillionaire Black athlete doesn’t protect them against racial profiling by the police.

I submit that Trump is being even more disrespectful of the American flag when he defends white supremacists and neo-Nazis as “good guys” after they chant “Jews will not replace us” in a torchlit march in Charlottesville that looked like a 1930s Hitler rally. I submit that Trump is being even more disrespectful of the American flag when he calls for the firing of Black athletes for using their First Amendment right in front of his political rally of white supporters in a bastion of the former Jim Crow South, Alabama. I submit that when the President of the United States calls on a business to fire employees for exercising their First Amendment rights, that is unAmerican. Further, for the President of the United States to dog whistle racist overtones into his political rallies for his second term is also un-American, even in the context of the Make America White Again overt racist threats against all people of color that is so easily being tolerated in the halls of both federal and state governments today.

Of course, the First Amendment applies only to government action. Hiring and firing decisions in the NFL are a matter of contractual agreements between players, team owners, and league officials. This is not an area where presidents should tread. How is it appropriate for the president to call on the NFL to make a rule that players should be required to stand for the national anthem? Or at least that’s what Steven Mnuchin has said is Trump’s intention. Of course, he has wandered into inappropriate areas many times before, with bully tweets to businesses about jobs moved to foreign soil; no doubt he will continue to do so unchecked. Certainly, Donald Trump is welcome to his own personal opinions and even to express them to others. But President Trump can not make official pronouncements, even on Twitter which he has designated as a source of official communication. Or at least, he should not if American traditions are an unassailable standard.

There will be a lot of back and forth, with tweets and counter tweets, proposed boycotts and counter boycotts all focused on sports. But we should not be distracted from the larger issue, of a president who continually threatens the foundations of United States democracy and the institutions of our government. Donald Trump continually tramples our traditions, our institutions, our collective sense of morality (if there still is one). The origins of authoritarian government are gradual and insidious. President Donald J Trump’s actions are fundamentally un-American and far more damaging to our country than Colin Kaepernick’s, because after all, he is the president.