> "He stood up for his principles" is an incorrect abstraction of what happened.

Absolutely, my phrasing here actually reductive to the point where it doesn't tell us whether he had moral standing to do so - (and that's by design; I actually don't know enough from this article, or others to know whether I agree with his behaviour or not, so I haven't weighed in on that). I'd agree that "standing up for their principles" describes segregationists too- i don't think it tells us who has the right side of an issue.

Whether Dail is right or wrong here is actually irrelevant to my critique above: my intended point was supposed to be:

that the comparison between this person (whose activism at their workplace cost them their job), versus Obama's critique (of people issuing issuing barely-thought-through rebukes online that they aren't invested in), is a pretty unhelpful comparison.

People asserting changes to what is or isn't acceptable in their workplace are absolutely risking blowback for it, and I maintain that's not remotely the same thing as the online brigading / mob justice / cancel-culture conducted by people who can often be trigger-happy as they stand to face no adverse consequences if their critiques are rejected.

I apologise if my phrasing above made this less than clear. It looks to have been interpreted as clearly siding with Dail's position on matters.

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EDIT: Your choice of example is also interesting though: "Hey look everyone, Pryce refused wave the same flag as I do, get the pitchforks!" is a clever choice on a BLM-related issue; as regardless of what happens in Dails case, it actually quite well characterizes the President's position (and his support bases position) on kneeling in the NFL -and now other sports-, to the point where he has called for the firing of people who refuse to stand for the anthem (and/or) flag.