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Yet, as well as the issue resonated well with Trump's base, among other folks, it seemed like a risky time for Nike to unveil a new 30th anniversary "Just Do It" ad campaign featuring, yes, the unemployed Colin Kaepernick, with a new motto of defiance: "Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything."

Trump, finding something new to be enraged about, tweeted that the sports merchandising giant was "getting absolutely killed with anger and boycott" because of its Kaepernick caper.

But, shock of shocks, that wasn't quite true. Despite boycotts and ritual burnings of Nike shoes in YouTube videos, the company's online sales actually jumped by 31 percent between the Sunday before and the Tuesday after Labor Day, according to Edison Trends -- almost twice last year's 17 percent increase over the same time period.

The moral of this saga may be that we are a country of many tribes. One group's taboo is another's totem. If Trump misread Nike's support, it may be because the company's customer base is about as young, urban and multiracial, as his is older, white and small town.

"Identity precedes ideology," philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of the new book "The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity," recently wrote in the Washington Post. "American politics," he concludes," is driven less by ideological commitments than by partisan identities." In other words, we vote not so much for what we want, our issues, as for who we think we are, our identity.

It is fashionable these days for politicians to decry "identity politics," at least until they can use it to their advantage. That's a game Trump plays like a champ.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

(c) 2018 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.