Poll Watch: Taking a Knee

A recent HBO Real Sports/Marist poll assessed public sentiment on protests by professional athletes during the playing of the national anthem.

You'll recall that president Trump has made this a bigly darn deal, going so far as to suggest that kneeling players should be FIRED as if they were contestants on his ridiculous TV show.

Trump has done his unlevel headed best to get America fired up about this, and had some success in the beginning, for sure. I'm not sure whether it has anything to do with Trump, but friends of mine have sworn off watching the NFL because of the protests, so there has been an impact.

But what does public opinion show?  First, the gory details: the poll was conducted using landlines and cell phones 10/15 - 10/17. Respondents had to be at least 18 years of age. Cell phone numbers were randomly selected from all regions and were proportionally sampled; business phones were excluded. There's more, but you get the drift: it was designed to be random and statistically accurate.

Back in September 2016, when Colin Kaepernick was kneeling during the anthem, 52% of Americans felt that players should be required to stand for the anthem. But in the October poll, 51% say leagues should not require athletes to stand.

Here's some demographic data:

• Percentages of those who think standing should not be required are up 7% in the Northeast and 5% in the West. 
• In the Midwest and South, 50% think players should be required to stand.
• By a large margin (76%), African Americans don't believe players should be forced to stand; this is up 28% over the previous survey.
• Latinos (56%) and whites (54%) also fall on the 'not required' side; these numbers are consistent with the 2016 survey.

So, what else does the poll tell us?

We're OK with the protests, but we're torn on what they mean. 49% think they're disrespectful to the freedoms represented by the anthem; 46% think they're representative of the freedoms the anthem represents.

When it comes to what the anthem itself represents, 57% think it's a symbol of our rights and freedoms; 34% think it's a symbol of the sacrifice our military has made over the years, and 10% are unsure. Last year's results were different: 65%, 27%, and 8%, respectively.

And while we struggle a little trying to get our arms around what this all means, 52% of us think the athletes 'did the right thing' by kneeling or locking arms; 41% think it was the wrong thing to do.

And, the poll shows viewership seems to be steady. Marist first asked about viewership way back in 2009 - the Michael Vick returns from prison days. Back then, 56% said they followed the NFL at least a little.  In this year's poll, that has grown to 69%.

Now - back to president Trump.

• 68% think he was wrong to criticize the players and call for them to be fired; 28% think he was right to do so.
• We are split on whether the Vice President did the right thing with his 'spontaneous' (and by spontaneous, I mean totally planned) walkout of the Colts game last month.

In a PBS Newshour/Marist poll published earlier in October, Americans seemed to be more of one mind. (This poll followed the same general methodology as noted above).

• 60% of us (and 67% of football fans) agree with the NFL that Trump's suggestion that the players should be fired were "inappropriate, offensive and divisive" while only 33% agreed with him.

Looking at the demographics, there's a clear connection between a person's politics and the extent to which they agree with the president.

• 72% of Republicans, 67% of conservative or very conservative self-identifiers and 76% of Trump voters agree with Trump's position.
• White Americans without a college degree, a key Trump demographic, are split; 45% agree with the president; 48% agree with the NFL.

What these two polls show, and most of the other ones as well, is that while president Trump does his darnedest to sway public opinion, he's not always successful.

Yay, us.