Americans are being manipulated into hating one another so that the Left can usher in an authoritarian government — don’t fall for it

During ESPN’s First Takeprogram on Tuesday, longtime network personality Steven A. Smith, who is black, threw down the race card as he lectured viewers about the ethnic nuances of the First Amendment.

As Breitbart News reported, Smith was complaining about a statement made by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who is white, when responding to a question about players sitting or engaging in some other act of protest during the playing of the National Anthem, which occurs before each and every game.

“The national anthem is a special moment for me. It’s a point of pride. That is a really important moment but we also have to understand the other side — that people do have rights, and we want to respect those,” he said when speaking to Arizona Cardinals season ticket holders.

Goodell went on to note that he had visited with New York Jets fans a week before, and a player whom he did not identify was asked the same thing. The player, the commissioner recalled, said there was “a time and a place” to engage in protest.

“That’s what we all have to, sort of, understand — the responsibility of doing it at the right time and in the right way,” Goodell said.

Well, that set Smith off.

“Roger Goodell is not the man to make that statement,” Smith claimed.

Really, Steven? How come?

“I’m going to say something that’s going to be controversial. I don’t give a damn,” he said. “No white person has the right to tell black folks when you should protest about something. Because usually protests that emanates from the black community is due in large part because of the transgressions exacted against that community by those who don’t happen to be black.”

Translated: If you’re not black, then shut up about this.

The thing is Roger Goodell never said: “Blacks can’t protest the National Anthem.” But because Steven A. Smith has so conditioned himself to see hatred and racism under every rock, he took the NFL commissioner’s very neutral statement as some sort of attackon black players (most of the players in the NFL are black. By far most of those who are protesting the anthem by not standing and placing their hands over their hearts are black).

You people don’t tell my people what to do, think or say. Only my people can tell my people what to do, think or say.

Well, here’s the problem with that kind of thinking: We can’t be Americans if only part of us want to be. (Related: Are we nearing civil war?)

The American Right is certainly not blameless, but the bulk of today’s violent political division has been inculcated, spread and fomented by the Marxist Left, Charlottesville notwithstanding.

Bankrolled by extremist billionaires like George Soros, Alt-Left groups like Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street and others have sprung up in recent years, attacking American history and traditions as illegitimate, corrupt and ideologically inferior. Their members show up at political rallies and events with the specific goal of shutting down speech they have deemed “racist” and “bigoted,” even though it’s not.

One Antifa organizer told CNN: “The idea in Antifa is that we go where they (right-wingers) go. That hate speech is not free speech. That if you are endangering people with what you say and the actions that are behind them, then you do not have the right to do that.

“And so we go to cause conflict, to shut them down where they are, because we don’t believe that Nazis or fascists of any stripe should have a mouthpiece.”

That is precisely Steven A. Smith’s mentality, as well as the mentality of those who agree with him. They really believe that certain Americans — be it due to their skin color, political beliefs, cultural leanings or social attitudes — don’t have a right to express themselves under the same First Amendment they use, and that they, by some divine authority, have been empowered to decide what speech and what viewpoints are valid.

The Left’s goal is nothing short of the complete overthrow of traditional America, and they’re using every means possible — race, politics and pop culture — to divide us so that they can conquer us.

They can’t be allowed to succeed.