Up and Anthem

The early exit of the U.S. Women’s National Team from the 2023 World Cup led to some predictable taunts from conservative critics who’ve long clashed with the outspoken athletes.

Even former president Donald Trump interrupted his taunting of the judge, jury and prosecutor in his latest indictment to assert that the team had lost because they failed to sing along to the National Anthem. “Woke equals failure,” he posted on Truth Social. (I’m not sure when that causal proof was established, as Trump previously bashed the USWNT for its anthem protests and yet the team nevertheless managed to win the last two World Cups, in 2015 and 2019.)

What has changed here are the demands from conservatives, who were once upset at athletes kneeling in silent protest during the anthem but who have moved the goalposts considerably to get upset now that the players are standing at attention but aren’t actively singing along to the anthem. (Right, feel free to key an eye on the players at MLB, NFL or NBA games and see how many of them are singing along.)

It’s worth remembering that this latest escalation by the patriotism police is part of a larger pattern.

For the longest time, the national anthem was only played at (domestic) sporting events on rare occasions, usually when the country was at war. Sportswriters took note of the bands performing it at the 1918 World Series, which was played during America’s involvement in World War I. And then, once it became cheaper and easier with the installation of public address systems, the anthem became fairly common at baseball games during World War II, as well.

During the post-WWII peace, the practice became a bit more irregular. The anthem was performed at many stadiums, but not without criticism. Here’s a piece from 1964:

At some parks, the anthem was performed, but without any real sense of solemnity. Here’s a letter to the editor from 1965, complaining about the Boston Red Sox.

The next year, the Chicago White Sox, who had been playing the anthem, swapped it out for “God Bless America” precisely because the anthem was so hard to sing.

Across town, the Chicago Cubs didn’t play either song, and shrugged off inquiries.

That soon changed, however, and as the War in Vietnam escalated, so did demands for pregame performances of the anthem. The Cubs did an abrupt about-face in 1967:

While performances of the national anthem had been meant to promote unity on the homefront during times of war, introducing to an already polarized homefront during the Vietnam War only made the anthem itself a politicized and polarizing controversy that further divided Americans.

By the time he published his autobiography in 1972, Jackie Robinson — who had been a second lieutenant during World War II — articulated a viewpoint that was quite common then but increasingly controversial today. “I cannot stand and sing the anthem,” he noted. “I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.”

And that was just Major League Baseball, where the anthem had its deepest roots.

The NFL had been playing the national anthem before games since 1941, but it wasn't until 2009 that players would stand on the sideline for every performance. Prior to that, with exceptions for the Super Bowl or post-9/11 ceremonies, the players stayed out of it, waiting in their locker rooms. Despite the novelty of that “tradition,” when Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the anthem in 2016 — just seven years later! — it was framed as a major controversy.

And so it goes.

The expectation that the anthem be played, and then the expectation that the players be there, and then the expectation that they not kneel, and now the expectation that they stand and sing. I’m not sure what the next escalation will be, but it’s coming.