Last week, Nike announced that it had canceled the planned rollout of its “Betsy Ross flag” sneakers due to concerns that the patriotic design might offend some customers. The decision came down mere hours after a report surfaced that former NFL quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick criticized the shoes for containing a flag that was created when slavery was legal. Nike’s knee-jerk reaction is yet another example of how liberals bully companies into submission in order to push their leftist agenda. Not everyone on the left praised Nike’s decision though. One Democratic congressman took to twitter to rebuke the move.
U.S. Representative Dan Lipinski, a Democrat from Illinois, tweeted a picture of himself wearing New Balance sneakers. The liberal lawmaker wrote, “I’m sitting here working. Notice I’m not wearing Nikes, nor will I anytime soon.” U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, both Republicans, also took to twitter to share their disdain with Nike.
“It’s a good thing @Nike only wants to sell sneakers to people who hate the American flag,” Cruz tweeted.
Offering his views of the controversy, Hawley tweeted, “Nike thinks American flag is symbol of oppression? What planet are you on? Nike gladly allows Chinese Communist Party to tell it what products to sell while building its business around sweatshop labor. Nike is anti-American, pure & simple.”
“Nike is a symbol of everything wrong with the corporate economy,” Hawley added. “They take advantage of our laws but send jobs overseas for sweatshop wages, partner w repressive regimes, aggressively avoid paying any US taxes, and then tell Americans to shut up and buy their stuff.”
Perhaps, no one was more angered by Nike’s decision than Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey. Rebuking the insanely popular company’s move, Ducey planned to attempt to “pull financial incentives in-state for the company that has plans to open a manufacturing plant in the state.” The Republican Governor stated, “Words cannot express my disappointment at this terrible decision. I am embarrassed for Nike.”
According to Fox News, Nike announced its plans to move forward with a new manufacturing facility. However, it didn’t reveal if the plant would still be built in Goodyear, Arizona. The company maintained, “Nike is a company proud of its American heritage and our continuing engagement supporting thousands of American athletes including the US Olympic team and US Soccer teams. We already employ 35,000 people in the U.S. and remain committed to creating jobs in the U.S., including a significant investment in an additional manufacturing center which will create 500 new jobs.”
Unlike Kaepernick, some people were eager to get their hands on a pair of the “Betsy Ross flag” sneakers. Fox News reported that “While the sneakers had a retail value of $120, leaked pairs were selling for as much as $3,000 on resale site StockX as of Tuesday afternoon. As prices surged, StockX CEO Scott Cutler said the site would block further sales of the sneaker, which he said did not align with company values.”
Sadly, the “Betsy Ross flag,” like President Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan “Make America Great Again,” is being branded as a racist symbol by some liberals. Interestingly, in the not too distant past, the first black POTUS attended his second inauguration ceremony at the United States Capitol. According to Breitbart, the now hated Revolutionary War era symbol was displayed prominently at the memorable event.
To point out the hypocrisy, Tim Murtaugh, the director of communications for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, tweeted, “Democrats running for president have officially lost it. Beto & Castro strongly imply that the Betsy Ross flag is a symbol of hatred. Do the rest of the Dems agree? Pictured here, of course, is the notorious flag prominently featured at President Obama’s 2nd inauguration.”
For an unknown reason, the left wasn’t up in arms over this decision. Maybe, it’s because Kaepernick punched his ticket for a Super Bowl appearance the day before. So, his mind might have been more on football than politics at the time.
