Over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick is clutching her pearls because President Trump opposes these ridiculous protests in the NFL.

The front-page teaser not only summarizes the content of her silly piece but also the goal of the left: to anathematize any criticism of any black person or leftist as an attempt to silence them: “How Trump Rob Blacks Athletes Of Their Voice: His Attacks on NFL Protests Are A Sinister Form of Censorship.”

If you disagree with anything a black person says, or anything a woman says, or anything a tranny says, you’re mounting an attack, “an attempt to silence them.”

Lithwick and others are mad, you see, because Trump — and lots of other whites — claim the protests are more than a cri du coeur over police brutality:

So, when Colin Kaepernick explicitly says time and time and time again that he is protesting police brutality, he is wrong. And when another player, Eric Reid, said on Monday that players are taking a knee expressly not to protest the flag or the military, but to protest the “incredible number of unarmed black people being killed by the police,” he is also wrong. What Sanders and Trump are saying here exemplifies one of the most grotesque aspects of unchecked privilege. It transcends even patronizing lectures about how black men should protest in such a way as to avoid offending white people. This is an attempt to dictate—with the threat of job loss—the very ability of some black men to have and maintain control over their own speech. What the president and Sanders are claiming is that they are better situated than the actual speakers to understand what those speakers are saying. That takes us from privilege to silencing, and it’s not a move that should go unremarked.

Well, Kaepernick might have said that. And he might be telling the truth. But the rest of the blacks in the National Felons League might have a different point, not least that Trump is some sort of “racist.”

Here is how the Washington Post described the protests in a headline: “When NFL players protest racism, some critics see only ‘millionaire athletes’ who should be silent.”

The Huffington Post: “NFL Players Protest Trump And Racism In Games Across The Country.”

And not to put too fine a point on it, “The Root” offers this in-your-face assessment: “Patriotism is for White People.”

So no, Madame Lithwick, the protests aren’t about censoring Kaepernick because he is upset about “police brutality.” They’re about tearing down and stigmatizing white America by stigmatizing anything that whites created or invented, not least the very country in which you enjoy the freedom to trash the creating people.