Washington Post sportswriter complains that sports fans are resisting the woke left's agenda.

Blames Donald Trump, sort of.

Jerry Brewer is a sports columnist for the Washington Post. Like many in his profession, he specializes in spotting the fatal flaws of sports teams. . .after they have lost a tough game or series.

Brewer is black. However, he usually leaves the race stuff to the sports page’s resident race man, Kevin Blackistone.

Unfortunately, Brewer made an exception with this piece that appeared on the front page of the Post (not the sports page) today and filled three more full pages of paper.

Brewer complains that sports, once a source (or at least potential source) of national unity, is now plagued by “grievance” — that is, the grievances of the right. Brewer claims not to blame Donald Trump. “Some consider Donald Trump the culprit, but he was just the closer,” he writes.

Yet, Trump’s name appears 22 times in Brewer’s hit piece. And he contends that Trump turned vague grievances into a conflagration when he committed “a sports crime” at a rally in Alabama. (More on that later.)

Brewer waffles on Trump’s exact role, but he’s absolutely clear on this point: Blame resides on the right side of the political spectrum. It’s the right that’s pushing the grievances that are wrecking his dream of American unity through sports.

After pages of throat-clearing, Brewer finally gets to the heart of the matter, as he sees it:

Three factions dominate the current sports landscape: the apolitical, the aggrieved and the activists. The aggrieved try to convince the apolitical that they’re on the same team, that blame for the politicization of sports should be placed entirely on people who care too much about societal change to keep entertainment and escapism as the priorities.

“Grievance,” he adds, “stands as a dreadful foil activism.” In other words, dissent from the activists’ agenda is “dreadful.”

This attempt to stack the deck through labeling would be an embarrassment in a high school newspaper’s sports page. On the front page of the Washington Post, it’s par for the course.

Who, for Brewer, are the aggrieved? Not those who complained that MLB’s record book didn’t include batting statistics compiled in the Negro Leagues against inferior pitching. Not those who complained about holding the all-star game in Atlanta due to allegedly racist changes in voting rules that were neither unreasonable, turnout-suppressing, nor abnormal.

Not those who complain about policing in cases where the police acted reasonably but a black lawbreaker died. Not those who complain that men who identify as women are excluded (albeit less and less) from competing in women’s sports where they have an enormous competitive advantage.

No. These folks aren’t “the aggrieved.” They are activists fighting for truth, justice, and (a new) American way.

It’s those who are unwilling silently to accept the left’s agenda, no matter how radically transformative it becomes, who are “the aggrieved.”

Behind Brewer’s sleight-of-hand labeling lies this truth about the American left: It is authoritarian at root. Only leftists — “those who care too much about societal change to keep entertainment and escapism as priorities” — should act up. Those who oppose the left’s desired changes should keep quiet, lest they cause disunity.

I don’t believe in “shut up and sing” (or in this case “play”) — the dismissive line used against left-wing activists in entertainment and sports. I supported Colin Kaepernick’s right to take a knee during the national anthem.

But Brewer is arguing, in effect, for an equally dismissive, equally offensive line: “Shut up and take it.”

It’s unrealistic to expect, and anti-democratic to desire, our nation to unite quietly around sports when activists “care too much about societal change to keep entertainment and escapism as the priorities.” Once the grievances of these activists take precedence over sports, sports unity is impossible, absent capitulation.

But capitulation is precisely what Brewer and his fellow leftists — authoritarians at heart — want and, increasingly, demand.

Indeed, Brewer gives away his authoritarian tendency in the first line of his screed: “At this sports crime scene [in Huntsville, Alabama], a great sports myth suffered a random death.” (Emphasis added)

Why is Huntsville a sports crime scene? Because it’s where Donald Trump said he would love to see an NFL owner fire a player who disrespects America’s flag.

As I’ve said, I’m stoutly against such firings. But Trump wasn’t committing a crime, either literally or figuratively. He was just expressing a view with which Brewer strongly disagrees. That Brewer chose to call it a “sports crime,” instead of, say, an “outrage,” tells me a lot. It tells me that Brewer believes those who express strong disagreement with his sentiments are criminal-like.

To borrow Brewer’s word, that notion is dreadful.

Finally, I want to comment on this line from Brewer’s piece, which I quoted above: “The aggrieved try to convince the apolitical that they’re on the same team.” Here, Brewer expresses the left’s fear that it is on the losing side of the argument.

Brewer seems to intuit that his claim that “the aggrieved” are “challenging our core beliefs about social interaction and fair play” has it backwards. Otherwise, why worry that the apolitical will be won over by the aggrieved?

The fact is that, in many cases, the apolitical and “the aggrieved” are on the same team. That’s almost certainly the case, for example, when it comes to men competing in women’s sports. (How can such competition possibly comport with “our core beliefs about fair play.”) It’s likely true when it comes to policing. The prevalence of crime has even caused many Democrats to affirm support for the police in their public utterances.

No wonder Brewer is displeased by efforts of “the aggrieved” to appeal to the apolitical. But that’s how it works in a democracy. It’s called persuasion and coalition building.

Brewer’s real quarrel seems to be with democracy and free speech. That alone was probably enough to elevate him from the sports page to the front page of the Washington Post.