President Donald Trump and First Lady Malania wave to the crowd from a skybox at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa at the Nov. 9 LSU-Alabama game: Glynn Wilson

“My country when she is right.’ Because patriotism is supporting your country all the time, but your government only when it deserves it.”
– Mark Twain

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson –

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It had been awhile since I entered the hallowed corridors of Bryant-Denny Stadium, one of the premier cathedrals of American football.

I could tell you my return was to see the two top teams in college football do battle for the national championship, but that would not be the truth.

It’s been a long, long time since I cared enough about the game of football to spend the exorbitant price they charge these days for tickets, hot dogs and Coca-Cola (they don’t sell beer in this buckle of the Bible Belt). Or to endure the crush of yeeehaw crowds of Alabama or LSU fans who jam these mega colosseums to witness and be a part of the spectacle like the masses who showed up in Rome to see the gladiators tear each other apart.

If I was going to gear up to deal with such a crowd, I would choose Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., where the smart, affluent people of urban Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia — a.k.a. the “Deep State” — have the good sense and guts to boo en masse when the likes of Donald Trump dares to show up to try use the venue as a political event for his 2020 campaign.

Unfortunately, the “poor, poor” undereducated people of my native state and rural Louisiana were more than willing to act as props in Trump’s reelection campaign on Saturday, drowning out the boos with chants of “USA, USA.”

While much of the crowd seemed to support Trump, a few Alabama students made a statement for impeachment: Twitter

If only somehow we could get more of these people to understand that cheering for their country is not the same thing as cheering for a corrupt politician like Trump, we might save this democratic republic yet.

My personal attendance at this game and political event was not planned much in advance. It just so happened that I needed to make the trip from Mobile to Birmingham on Friday, and I sometimes like to pass through Tuscaloosa on the way back on the route through Mississippi. I’m sure many people who have done this trip can relate to my feeling that the drive through Montgomery to Baldwin County on the way to Gulf Shores or Mobile can be a monotonous long drive. I’ve found that driving down the Alabama-Mississippi line on U.S. Highway 45 is shorter and faster, with far less traffic.

Also, in addition to advance notice that Trump was coming to the game, I had planned to hook up with U.S. Senators Doug Jones and Joe Manchin of West Virginia at a Tuscaloosa Democrats tailgate party on the Quad. The traffic was so backed up on all roads leading from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa Saturday morning that I wasn’t able to make it in time for that before the game, and on the way down, I was offered a free ticket to attend the game.

Now I could have potentially sold that ticket for up to $2,000 outside the stadium, but I confess I wanted to see the spectacle myself.

We sat about half way up the lower level on around the 40-yard line, just in front of the skybox where Trump joined Mobile’s Republican Congressman Bradley Byrne and other Republican officials.

Noticeably absent from that skybox was former Senator and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who announced this week that he would run for that Senate seat again.

Alabama’s Jeff Sessions Lights Up Political World With Announcement to Run for Senate

The holder of that seat now, Democrat Doug Jones of Birmingham, sat elsewhere with Coach Nick Saban’s good friend Joe Manchin.

Unfortunately, the Alabama Crimson Tide ended up fumbling and losing the game to the Louisiana State University Tigers, perhaps distracted like the crowd seemed to be with the celebrity-in-cheif on high.

Alabama and LSU fans sitting around us spent more time looking back up at Trump and taking selfies with his skybox in the background than they did watching and cheering for their teams on the field. I kid you not. It was so distracting that I left and went out into the entrance corridor and watched most of the second quarter while standing in line for a hotdog and sneaking a smoke.

I went back to my seat for the halftime show. Followers on Facebook may recall that I have often lamented not being able to see the show from the Million Dollar Band when watching the games on TeeVee, since they just show a bunch of corporate advertising and talking heads commenting on the stats.

Unfortunately again, the show was a tribute to the U.S. military for Veterans Day, a program that Trump seemed to enjoy very much. He and his trophy bride Malania stood up and waved to the crowd like the show was designed to celebrate them, personally, like a king and a queen overlooking the crowd as the gladiators mauled each other on the field.

I threw up my hot dog a little in my mouth, and decided to vacate the premises to get out of town before the throngs clogged the roads again on the way home.

A long time ago, I once worked for a daily newspaper that used the quote from Stephen Decatur as its banner moniker on the front page.

“Right or wrong, my country…”

But as I pointed out after I sued the corrupt newspaper and beat them in federal court for blatant, long-term violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, that partial quote is misleading. Here’s the full quotation.

“Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”

Then as G. K. Chesterton, a critic of Decatur, replied in A Defence of Patriotism: “‘My country, right or wrong’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober’.”

You might see today’s Republicans embrace a version of this. They use it to criticize the government they seem to hate. They win elections by attacking the American government. These days Democrats seem to do a better job of actually running the government.

Nothing I say should be interpreted as partisan in any way. If it was the other way around, and the Democrats won elections by tearing down the government and the Republicans were the competent ones who governed best, I would not hesitate to become a Republican.

That is not the case we confront these days.

To end, let me remind readers of another relevant quote from history.

“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

The English writer Samuel Johnson gave us this gift on April 7, 1775.

Conservative talk radio and Fox News have made a fortune over the past 30 years twisting the news to seem like they are more patriotic patriots than the rest of us. Trump is just the latest and biggest scoundrel to capitalize financially and politically from a pretense of patriotism.

True patriotism and being a so-called “true patriot” to the cause of American democracy requires more than trite slogans, pretty songs and salutes to a flag. It requires obtaining enough knowledge of what it means be a patriot for this cause to know the difference between a dedicated public servant and a crass political actor who openly profits from the office and abuses the power that goes with it.

To those who would say criticizing Trump or booing him at a football or baseball game is “unpatriotic” or disrespecting the office of the presidency, I declare bunk.

Anyone who cheers this scoundrel is not a true patriot of American democracy. They are the modern descendants of the one-third of the colonial population in 1776 who sided with King George III and the British redcoats who tried in vain to stop the American Revolution from succeeding. They seem fine with going back to monarchy and having the church tell the state what to do.

Put that in your vape and smoke it.

Meanwhile outside the stadium, a true redneck dumbass Trump supporter named Hoyt Hutchinson got himself arrested after stabbing and deflating the Trump Baby Ballon and posting it live on Facebook. Isn’t this a truly anti-American act of rebellion?

True patriots understand that free speech means protecting the rights of those who we disagree with, and that it has limits. It does not protect the right of destruction of property.

The Baby Trump Balloon made it to Tuscaloosa Saturday, Nov. 9, to greet President Trump on his visit to the city for the LSU-Alabama game. To local Democrats, it was considered a big deal: Mike McCracken

A deflated Trump Baby Balloon in Tuscaloosa, Ala. on Saturday, Nov. 8: Twitter