The unprecedented backlash that ex-NFL player, Colin Kaepernick, continues to receive for his political stance back in 2016 is pretty insane, with an incident happening just last month whereby a Twitter user took to the platform to share a picture of a Kaepernick doll being hung by its neck and dragged by the back of a pickup truck in San Jose, California. As well as, a recent incident where Teen Moms 2's Jenelle Evans stormed out following being called out for offensive tweets she made towards Kapaernick in the past.
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So it's pretty refreshing to see someone stand up for the activist, especially when it's political figure, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the one doing so. Buttigieg told TMZ Sports that he supports the QB's right to take a knee during the national anthem, and he's ripping Trump apart for going after the protesters. "The way I feel about it is the flag that was on my shoulder when I served represented, among other things, our right to free speech," Mayor Pete (a Navy veteran) said in his statement.
"You don't have to like it, but one of the reasons we serve was to defend that right, the right of peaceful protest and the idea that we can protest what is wrong with our country." That's when Pete proceeded to take a hit at the president - who has publicly called for the NFL to fire any "son of a b*tch" who doesn't stand for the anthem. "If the president had served," Pete said, "maybe he'd feel a little more strongly about some of those freedoms. And, I get that there's a lot of strong opinions about this, but that's part of why we served."
Mayor Pete made his first public remark about the situation back in 2017, tweeting: "I was trained to stand & salute. But freedom -- including to protest injustice -- is the whole point of the anthem, the flag, and the country."