Whether you kneel or stand - what kind of healthy democracy plays the national anthem at sports games?

Around 200 NFL players took a knee during the national anthem Sunday - a massive display of solidarity against racism that came just a few days after Donald Trump made disparaging comments about Colin Kaepernick - the former San Francisco 49er quarterback whose refusal to stand for the anthem got him blackballed from the league.

At a rally in Alabama, Friday, Trump called Kaepernick an S-O-B and said that players like him who don't stand for the national anthem "should be fired".

Why are players even standing for the national anthem in the first place?

Until 2009, they actually stayed in the locker room while the anthem was sung.

Isn't this kind of cheap, reactionary, and militaristic patriotism better suited to North Korea than our ostensibly democratic republic?

As Alex Smith of the Kansas City Chiefs asked, why is Trump being more critical of these players than he was of the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville?