My opinion pretty much aligns with yours and the boneheads with the criminal helmet tags pretty much blows the gasket for me, too.
I think what Dave is saying here is typical "wishful thinking" as I call it. He's lamenting that damn near everything is politicized these days and seems to think if those that are offended would simply choose not to be then things would be better.
I've got a philosophy about dealing with problems...if you have a solution, apply it. If you don't, then simply step around it...leave it in the dust and move on. Of course, that can be applied in some cases, not all. Works with other human beings and when you're focused on not making mountains out of molehills...but it doesn't work when something rather important to you is broken. You gotta fix it.
The point he's missing IMO, is that it wasn't the flag waving all American patriots that "overreacted" to what Kaepernick did, it was the left seeing that it struck a nerve and capitalized on the devision. So he's wrong in saying that it's "our" fault...they weren't going to let us "ignore" it if we tried.