One Thing Is Making Rush Limbaugh Very ‘Uneasy’

Most of you already know that Rush Limbaugh is my political sensei. I’m a Rush Baby. My dad listened to him when he was my age, so I grew up hearing him in the background. If it weren’t for the commentary from Limbaugh and the Chicks, I don’t know how I would’ve made it through college without completely losing my mind.

ANYWHO. I always look forward to hearing his take on current events, and he recently surprised a lot of people with his take on Trump and the NFL. He basically said the idea of the government getting involved and telling a private entity what to do freaks him out. In other words, Trump’s tweets about the NFL protests are genuine and he’s right, but he has to realize that he’s POTUS. It makes this a bit more complicated.

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Here’s the transcript:

RUSH: I have to share one more thing with you. There’s a part of this story that’s starting to make me nervous, and it’s this. I am very uncomfortable with the president of the United States being able to dictate the behavior and power of anybody. That’s not where this should be coming from.

 

Trump is continually tweeting — I know what he’s doing, and I understand why he’s doing it, and his motives are pure; don’t misunderstand. But I don’t think that it is useful or helpful for any employee anywhere to be forced to do something because the government says they must. That scares hell out of me. This should come from the league, as it looks like Goodell wants it to. The owners should be demanding this, not the president. The commissioner should be demanding this, not the president.

 

We don’t want the president being able to demand anybody that he’s unhappy with behave in a way he requires. That’s scary to me, even if the president’s somebody I happen to like. This is a workplace issue. It’s the owners and the league that let this get out of hand because they didn’t know how to deal with it or were afraid to.

 

And if this is gonna be made to work, the players are gonna have to be told who the boss is and they’re gonna have to be given specific workplace rules and regulations that they know have nothing to do with the Constitution, the First Amendment, freedom of speech. If you want to work for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you are gonna stand for the anthem. If you want to work for Dallas Cowboys, you’re gonna stand for the anthem.

 

But I’m really nervous if all that happens because the president makes it happen. He can make it happen by forcing the owners. But this is a slippery slope to me, and it hit me a while ago and crystallized last night. Trump is in the right, don’t misunderstand. But no president should have dictatorial power over individual behavior.

 

A president should not be able to tell the owners of a business how their employees are gonna act and what they’re gonna swear allegiance to that and all that. That’s up to the owners to do, and it’s up to the owners to come up with a system of punishment if their employees violate company policy, like it is in any other business.

 

They don’t own the stage, they don’t have a right to it. Theirs is a privilege just like every employee’s is. You don’t own where you work unless you do. You’re always subject to the rules, guidelines, and wishes of the people who do own the business. The NFL should be no different. But when the NFL misjudges its audience and doesn’t know who its audience is and the NFL is afraid of its players, then the inmates start running the asylum.

 

And that’s when the president does stand up, because what he says about this is absolutely on the money. But it ought not be a presidential dictate. It can be involved in fixing it, but it ought not be why all of a sudden people start snapping to and behaving accordingly. This is local issue, it’s a team issue, it’s a workplace issue.

He’s absolutely right. This is a workplace issue. Trump can have an opinion, but he can’t FORCE the NFL to do something and SHOULDN’T. And as far as I know, he hasn’t proposed the government FORCING them. That’d be insane. He’s just pushing his agenda. He’s acting more like a CEO.

One thing is for sure. This is between the NFL and the players. Period.