NASCAR’s most popular driver is getting a lot of feedback for a tweet in which he supported the right of NFL players to protest during the national anthem — some positive, some negative.
After President Donald Trump said if an NFL player protested during the national anthem, the owners should “get that son of a b—- off the field right now” and fire him, several athletes in various sports, including NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt Jr., reacted on social media.
Longtime NASCAR owner Richard Childress agreed with the president and said he’d put any driver or crew member who protested on a Greyhound bus. Childress was the longtime team owner for NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr., who was killed during a race in Daytona.
On Monday, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who has been voted NASCAR’s most popular driver for 14 consecutive years, tweeted, “All Americans R granted rights 2 peaceful protests Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable-JFK”
As of Wednesday morning, the tweet had more 11,000 comments, 148 retweets and 388,000 likes. The majority of the reactions are supportive, though some were angry.
Earnhardt Jr.’s quote came from President John F. Kennedy’s March 13, 1962 address on the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, in which JFK said, “Our own history shows how fierce the resistance can be to changes which later generations regard as part of the normal framework of life. And the course of rational social change is even more hazardous for those progressive governments who often face entrenched privilege of the right and subversive conspiracies on the left.
“For too long my country, the wealthiest nation in a continent which is not wealthy, failed to carry out its full responsibilities to its sister republics. We have now accepted that responsibility. In the same way those who possess wealth and power in poor nations must accept their own responsibilities. They must lead the fight for those basic reforms which alone can preserve the fabric of their societies. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
