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Article snippet: FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — In the expansive Gillette Stadium parking lot, with sausages sizzling on the grill and beers icing in the cooler, football fans here resented the intrusion of politics into their Sunday afternoon tailgating traditions. “Football is such an escape, no one should be politicizing it,” said Laurie Flynn, 28, who works in marketing in Boston. Her family and friends, who arrived at 7:30 in the morning for the 1 p.m. kickoff of the Patriots’ game, started with mimosas as they set up their grill and put out the Buffalo chicken dip. And yet President Trump’s directives — if players take a knee during the national anthem, he said, the N.F.L. owners should fire them and fans should walk out — had done just that. “Why is the president commenting on the N.F.L.?” Ms. Flynn asked. “Doesn’t he have bigger things to think about? This is unfair to the fans. I didn’t come here to deal with this.” At football stadiums across the country, fans seemed united in their irritation that their sacrosanct leisure hours had been hijacked by a raging, uncivil war that in their view should be confined on Sundays to the talk shows — so they could tune it out. Still, the president’s message had reached the fans, here and elsewhere, and it got some families talking and other families not talking because of disagreements. Many noted that in this country, players were lucky to be able to express whatever view they wanted. But drawing attention to police brutality and racial ineq... Link to the full article to read more