I think you missed the point, which is NOT that an athlete (or a celebrity or anyone else) is INCAPABLE of knowing about things other than their specific field of expertise, but rather, that we, as a culture, give way too much credence to the political views of athletes and celebrities, even if we have no reason to believe such people are informed about politics or have sophisticated political views (as opposed to knee-jerk, naive and ill-informed political views). This is why I wrote that “just because someone is talented enough to toss a football in the more-or-less right direction doesn’t mean they have any clue about political issues.” From everything I’ve heard from Colin Kaepernick, he shows no signs of having political views that I’d call informed or sophisticated, and I’d guess the same is true for the majority of those athletes engaging in these protests that they don’t even understand the point of.

We live in a country where uninformed idiots are allowed to vote, of course, but that doesn’t mean we also need to perk up our ears whenever these uninformed idiots chime in to let us know what they think about complex political issues. We’re increasingly operating in this mode where we get our political views from B-list celebrities, late-night comedy losers and now, jocks. I have interacted with so many friends at this point who are just repeating silly things they’ve heard from the likes of Complacent Stephen Colbert, Smug Samantha Bee or Little Jimmy Kimmel, and it’s creating a loud, obnoxious liberal echo chamber that substitutes snarky ridicule for in-depth analysis and engagement and that’s also completely out of touch with much of America. (I don’t think the conservative echo chamber is any better, by the way, but it’s also a lot smaller because of the well-documented liberal domination of media/celebrity culture.)