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Yeah, US Olympians are woke. Deal with it.
Sports have always been political — it's just a question of who's speaking out.
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We don’t know if Vice President JD Vance anticipated that when he attended the opening ceremonies at the Winter Olympics in Italy he’d be booed by the crowd. But if he did, he probably didn’t mind.
Vance is used to it by now — he gets booed a lot — but more importantly, like his boss and most of the conservative elite, Vance knows that every major sporting event is an opportunity for the right to stoke the culture war and play the victim. Which is exactly what the Olympics have become.
The Olympics have often featured political controversies, but this year’s games stand out because of the growing number of athletes — especially, but not solely, Americans — making their beliefs known.
Unsurprisingly, none of it is particularly complimentary to this administration.
The growing anger on the right is mostly performative, but if we’re being generous, we can acknowledge how uncomfortable they must feel at seeing one Olympian after another go public with their distaste for Trump and their chagrin at the administration’s policies. And it comes so soon after conservatives got themselves all worked up over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show, which they decided was an affront to everything they believe in.
Most distressing for them, Bad Bunny turned out to be one of the most-watched halftime shows of all time, even before you add in the 98 million views on YouTube. At least one Republican congressman has said that though he doesn’t speak Spanish, he thinks there was something fishy in Bad Bunny’s lyrics, and he’s “investigating.”
Coming off that brouhaha, conservatives were primed for outrage, and that’s what they’re getting.
It was kicked off by skier Hunter Hess, who was asked about the troubles back home and responded by expressing his complicated feelings.
“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the US right now, I think. It’s a little hard. There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t,” he said, noting that he was representing “all the things I think are good about the US. I just think, if it aligns with my moral values I think I’m representing it. Just ‘cause I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the US.”
But Donald Trump is not one for nuance, so he took to Truth Social to lie about what Hess had said and condemn him as “a real Loser”:
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MAGA Republicans rushed to join in.
Olympic athletes, said Vice President Vance, are “not there to pop off about politics,” which we all know is exactly what he would have said if conservative athletes had praised the president. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said that any athlete expressing incorrect sentiments “should be stripped of their USA Olympic uniform.” Rep. Byron Donalds, currently running for governor in the same state, tweeted in response to Hess, “YOU chose to wear our flag. YOU chose to represent our country. YOU chose to compete at the @Olympics. If that’s too hard for you, then GO HOME. Some things are bigger than politics. You just don’t get it.”
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