As much as I really didn’t want to get into it, there is a point – call it the final point, if you want – that no one has really talked about, save one U.S. Senator from the midwest.

Over the weekend, prior to this NFL dust-up, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska made a couple of points on Twitter that we should discuss a bit, because they speak to a larger problem we’re facing as a nation.

NFL players:
You have the right to protest Trump tmrw. But aren’t there better ways than kneeling before the flag soldiers died to defend?

— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 23, 2017

btw, Trump wants you to kneel–because it divides the nation, with him and the flag on the same side. Don't give him the attention he wants. https://t.co/ic5Vc9oGyB

— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 23, 2017

Sasse hits the nail right on the head here, and it’s important to note from his tone that he’s not knocking the President here. He’s just stating a fact.

Here’s the deal: Trump’s agenda is getting derailed pretty badly. Congress can’t decide whether it likes or dislikes his agenda half the time, and the other half is longtime Republicans thinking they can “right the ship” by keeping Congress more moderate.

The result is a visibly frustrated Trump, who, as a businessman and a TV personality, is looking for the best way to get solid, positive PR. He caved on certain issues to Democrats with the hopes that it would create positive media coverage, but that ultimately failed. His next act was to try and rally his base.

So, he kicked off this little weekend of horror with statements insulting the NFL and its players, and made the controversy about him instead of about what the kneeling was supposed to represent – justice, equality, etc.

He divided most of America into Us vs. Them yet again, and it got all of America talking about Trump. There is a reason that Trump did this, there is a reason that the media went along with it, and there is a reason voters are still talking about it.

It feeds Trump addiction to the story being all about him. It feeds the media’s need to be the opposition party. It feeds our nation’s apparent need to make everything political.

At some point, we’re going to have to recognize this is an addiction and we are going to have to go into some sort of nationwide rehabilitation for it, because it’s utter insanity that we’re giving so much airtime to what was going to otherwise be a silent protest movement that would have been over in three minutes.