“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired! He’s fired!’ ”

Down camme the Trump haters from great heights of sanctimony. Trump is a racist and white supremacist, charged the Democrats and their cheerleaders; to wit, the hopelessly-corrupted fake-news media. No other conclusion could be drawn, they intoned over and over again.

Repetition of lies makes factoids. Leftists know that and are well practised in mythmaking. ‘The stolen generations’ is an exemplar in Australia. Talk to almost anyone you like and that myth has become a ‘truth’.

As most of the highly paid NFL players are black – they must have some physiological edge, but we are probably not allowed to say that — Trump must be a racist. And he is dog-whistling to white supremacists. His use of the word ‘bitch’ proves that to those who are prepared to go through any tendentious contortions to arrive at the answer they want.

The never-Trump Republicans get on board; if in a less colourful way. Karl Rove disproves of Trump’s language and his impugning of the parenthood of the NFL players. I was reminded of NSW Premier Robert Askin vocalising his thought “run over the bastards” to Lydon Johnson when anti-Vietnam War protesters were attempting to block his motorcade. Askin was criticised for this in some quarters, but I don’t seem to recall part of that criticism being related to the archaic literal meaning of ‘bastards’.

Memo to leftists and Karl Rove and company: Trump was using a common or garden expression, as was Askin. Moreover, in using the expression “he’s fired” he was parodying himself. The humour of the children’s literature character Amelia Bedelia, who took everything literally, would be entirely lost on today’s adult wallies. We are clearly living through a dumb age in which common sense has become a much rarer commodity.

Mark Steyn says that common sense presupposes a common understanding of the world, which is now absent. He’s right, which is why Q&A panels and audiences, for example, appear to me to be mostly populated by aliens; and particularly dumb and nasty ones. Witness, as another example, an elementary school librarian, Ms Liz Phipps Soeiro, who scolded Melania Trump for gifting her library “racist” Dr Seuss books. This lady can spot racist undertones in The Cat in the Hat. Imagine how young children will turn out under this dumb leftist tutelage. It is a growing curse on our children and on mankind.

Back to taking a knee for the flag and anthem. Though it has taken on an anti-Trump complexion, the initial protest by Colin Kaepernick was against (imagined) police brutality towards black men. Disconcertingly, even those who oppose the form of the protest; nevertheless, implicitly accept its premise, if only by their silence about it. The premise being that black men are disproportionately targeted and shot by cops. Quite simply, this is not supported by the evidence.

I wrote about this using publicly available data (The Truth in Black and White,) but Heather MacDonald (The War on Cops) is the person to go to. She has completely exposed the myth. For example, when set against black crime rates, blacks are by a long way less likely to be killed by cops than are whites. Don’t worry, the myth will live on. Black rabblerousers and the fake-news media will see to that.

Facts aside about police brutality, there is a lot of injustice in the world. I am pretty sure many young black people in America suffer injustices. Others do too but that doesn’t mean black sportsmen can’t highlight the injustices that they feel most acutely. How they do it is the issue.

A national anthem and flag transcend politics. Me, standing for Advance Australia Fair does not mean that I support Malcolm Turnbull. Nor does it mean that I am happy about the inevitable enactment of SSM or about impoverishing renewable-energy targets. Equally, kneeling when the anthem is played would not be a constructive or remotely comprehensible way of voicing my political objections.

There has to be one point where those making up a nation come together. That point is patriotism; wanting the best for the nation as a whole. Standing for the anthem and flag is simply an expression of that point of common cause, even among those who may be bitterly divided on particular political and social issues.

Apologists for the NFL players claim that they are not intending to disrespect the flag. This is pure sophistry. If you don’t mean to be disrespectful, it is odd indeed to take a knee precisely when the American flag is flying and the Star-Spangled Banner playing. To someone with common sense (there’s the problem I suppose) it is plainly disrespectful. And it is unmistakeably directed at the unifying symbols of the nation.

Trump was right to call it out. Isn’t it refreshing to have a political leader who is not afraid to speak his mind. Who is not cowed by political correctness. Who stands for something. He’s the one best last chance to quell the crippling rise of leftism AKA progressivism, which is intent on besmirching the achievements, symbols and moral standards underpinning Western societies.

Can’t have that. They are out to get him.