A version of this article was first published in the Right to the Point newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox every Wednesday morning and to vote in subscriber polls.
New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart ignited a firestorm when he agreed to introduce President Donald Trump at a rally last week, saying that it was an honor and privilege to be there. An incredulous teammate said he at first thought the video was AI in a critical social-media post that he later took down.
A columnist for The Athletic said that intrateam conflict was over, but the internet has not been so quick to let go of the story. On social media, people began speculating on the partisan allegiance of various NFL quarterbacks and arguing about which NFL teams have the most number of Republicans on their roster. (It’s unclear if the latter is the Chargers, the 49ers or the Chiefs — more research, as they say, is needed.)
Things would get worse. On “The View,” Joy Behar made reprehensible accusations about the 23-year-old Dart because he was friendly toward the president and Trump clearly likes the quarterback. (You can watch video of the event here.)
But there’s a more important conversation under the surface, and it’s what happened to the idea that we should respect the office of the president of the United States.
This comes to mind in every recent State of the Union, when various lawmakers behave badly in order to make headlines or prove their robust opposition to the president and his agenda, regardless of what their outburst costs their reputation, or the reputation of Congress.
It also comes to mind every time someone is respectful to the president, whether or not they support him, and people unload on them. (Case in point: the criticism of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman for merely shaking Trump’s hand at the State of the Union.)
It isn’t the first time, of course, that athletes have gotten in trouble for the hint of association with Trump. (Remember the MAGA cap in Tom Brady’s locker?) But now it’s not just Dart being criticized, but people defending Dart, like Boomer Esiason.
Esiason said, not unreasonably, on the “Boomer and Gio” sports radio show, “Dart was asked to do something, to introduce the president of the United States. How many people get an opportunity to do something like that, regardless of who the president is?”
For that, the former Bengals quarterback recently named to the Radio Hall of Fame is now being called an “idiot” and “an out-of-touch old man.”
You can’t even promote respect without being disrespected in the new rules of politics these days. And, to be clear, this goes both ways — Republicans have spectacularly failed to respect the office when it’s held by a Democrat.
The song “Hail to the Chief” was first played in honor of a U.S. president in 1815, according to Smithsonian magazine; it became an official tribute in 1954.
Few know the lyrics, though perhaps more of us should. They include the lines:
Hail to the Chief we have chosen for the nation,
Hail to the Chief! We salute him, one and all.
Maybe it seems quaint, the idea that all of us should salute someone that some of us elected. But isn’t that the point of this “we the people” stuff?
A tale of 2 Memorial Day posts
Social media often feels like a cesspool of toxicity, curated for outrage and clicks. That was the sense many people got from a Memorial Day post from the Democratic Party that featured photographs of servicemen and women who have died in Iran — a post that was deleted after objections from Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, among others.
“It’s wrong to politicize this day,” Crow wrote, referring to the Democrats’ post about Americans who have died in “Trump’s war with Iran.”
In the words of one commenter on X, “Thank you, sir.”
A much different Memorial Day story unfolded on the same platform when a Gold Star wife who lives in Arkansas asked if anyone was going to be at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, and if so, if they would send a photo of her husband’s grave.
If you’ve been to Arlington, where more than 400,000 veterans and their family members are buried, most with uniform headstones made of white marble, you know how profoundly moving these sacred grounds are — and how difficult it can be to find a single marker.
So Sharrell Shaw included the section and gravestone marker in her post, just to make it easier if anyone happened to see her post and look for his grave.
What happened was remarkable. First, one person responded to Shaw with a photo of her husband’s grave and his condolences. He also left flowers. Then dozens of others began showing up, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who left a military challenge coin at the grave. (Such coins, the website of the Wounded Warrior Project notes, are exchanged by service members and veterans and can have even more significance even diamond rings.)
Staff Sgt. Alan Shaw, a father of three, died in an explosion in Iraq in 2007 at age 31, according to his obituary. His service is inspiring, as is his wife’s determination to keep his memory alive.
Sharrell Shaw later wrote, “When I made that post yesterday, I truly thought maybe one or two people might stop by if they happened to already be at Arlington this weekend. I never imagined that nearly twenty years later, Alan’s grave would be surrounded by flowers, flags, prayers, and strangers speaking his name on Memorial Day. Thank you for showing up for him today. ... As a Gold Star family, there’s always this quiet fear that over time, people move on and your person slowly fades into history. Y’all reminded me today that Alan is still remembered, still honored, and still matters. I can’t fully put into words what that means to us.”
Thumbs-down to AI
So social media isn’t always as terrible as it seems. But AI gets a thumbs-down from the Right to the Point family in last week’s post, with a majority saying that AI is, on average, a net negative for society at this point.
Recommended Reading
Deseret News Opinion Editor Jay Evensen looks at President Trump’s settlement with the IRS and says that, like Joe Biden’s pardon of his son, this is not how the judicial system should work.
“A president sues the IRS, an agency he controls, then decides to settle out of court, essentially negotiating with himself. That settlement gives him the aforementioned sum to reward victims of ‘lawfare’ unconnected to the suit — victims identified by a panel he controls.”
Law professor Asma Uddin on the attack by two teenagers at the Islamic Center of San Diego, and what we should take away from it.
“A government powerful enough to outlaw hateful speech gets to decide which speech is hateful. In a country where official rhetoric can cast Muslim life as a constitutional danger, a hate-speech regime could easily be turned the wrong way, and the machine built to punish hatred might not point first at the men who attack mosques. It might point at the mosque. But that does not mean the law is helpless.”
How does a mosque full of Muslim children become a battleground?
How can policymakers help new parents with the expenses of raising children? A baby bonus is just the beginning, writes policy analyst Patrick T. Brown.
“Infant childcare in a center will always be expensive, and more parents report a desire to be home full time with a 4-month-old than a 4-year-old. Expanding the definition of ‘childcare’ for children under 1 year of age to include a parent could meaningfully expand the choices facing many families without massively increasing the budgetary cost.”
The case for up-front assistance for new parents
End Notes
During the 2024 presidential campaign, then-Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t go on the Joe Rogan podcast, but she did go on “Call Her Daddy,” a podcast popular among young liberal women.
The woman behind that show, Alex Cooper, recently announced that she is pregnant, and happily so, which has set off no small amount of handwringing among her progressive followers who see this life trajectory as somewhat of a betrayal. Cooper, after all, is married, too, and some commenters on social media seem to think that she’s about to turn “Call Her Daddy” into something resembling “Ballerina Farm.”
That’s unlikely to happen. She has never promoted what are often called “traditional values” on the show and is unlikely to pivot to that now. Still, the commentary is interesting to see even if the “Call Her Mommy” headlines are already old.
Cooper recently captioned an Instagram photo of her, her husband and her swelling stomach “Our family.” So who knows? Maybe she’ll start the baby boom America needs. Best wishes to the couple and their child.