If An American Wins a Gold Medal and Doesn't Go To The White House, Is Donald Trump Still President?

 

I wish I could I say I was surprised how the left is increasingly turning sports not into an athletic competition but a moral one. I'm honestly shocked it took them this long.

First of all, sports are a competition. That means that there will be winners and losers. Considering that we live in the era of the participation trophy in every competitive sports so that losing doesn't hurt your precious self-esteem, the fact that athletes devote their lives to a calling is always going to be anathema to the deconstructionist left. They think all institutions are for losers and since sports are institutions only suckers get involved.

Then there's the fact that sports are capitalist enterprises. All sport across the world involve money, even in socialist and communist countries, but as we all know with the left its only in America where that is unacceptable. I suspect that's the real reason so many athletes engage in the virtue signaling they do: they need to prove that while they'll multimillionaires they're really opposed to the institution.

Sports also have teams that represent cities and states, not just blue states. And athletes come from all over the country and the world to play for these teams. In order to do so they have to assimilate and engage in team work for a greater good. I suspect that's why team sports are on the decline with younger people.  If someone making a remark in cyberspace is too triggering for them, how could they possibly survive a locker room?

And of course sports have always been part of so much of the racial argument as every white superstar who brings success to his team must by the arguments of so much of America being doing so at the expense of African-Americans. An organizations sudden success after years of struggling, such as the WNBA, is somehow considered morally bankrupt if involves a white superstar. This 'proves' to the left that America is racist and as is keeping with the argument of academic progressives, negates any current success and taints it. What the athletes themselves think on the subject is almost always irrelevant to the subject, as is what the fans or even the general population thinks. This, of course, never translates the other way as Spike Lee felt it perfectly fine to wear an outfit in favor of Free Palestine at the NBA All-Star Game where the first time an Israeli-born citizen had qualified. (I seriously doubt anyone from Gaza was watching the All-Star Game but its good to know that Spike had their back, and I'm sure that will lead to a permanent three-state solution.)

Oh and here's a little known fact. The U.S. government was actually planning to reach a major settlement with the survivors of the indigenous people that numbered in the trillions of dollars. But once Cleveland changed its name to the Guardians and Washington to the Commanders, their representatives issues a statement: "All is forgiven. You can keep all of that stolen land. This totally makes up for the hundreds of years of mistreatment."

And I don't really think there's ever been a time in history when the left has ever liked events such as the Olympic Games.  I mean, what could be a worse example of American exceptionalism when American athletes dare to go to foreign countries and prove that they are superior to the rest of the world on a national stage? And all those flags on their uniforms, and carrying them around? I bet they've always been secret Fox News viewers, all of them!

All of this is facetious but not really, particularly in regard to how everything that seems to happen in our society is now a reflection on the man in the White House. One almost wonders if the only solution that would make the left happy – if such a thing is possible – is for every single professional league in America and every sport to engage in a moratorium until the end of the Trump Presidency. Because what was once seen as the pinnacle of achievement of a championship team – a congratulatory call from the President and a visit to the White House – is now essentially a mark of the beast among the culture warriors.

It has to be said that this shows another side of the left's argument of 'speaking truth to power' is pure hypocrisy. They've made it clear that just performing in a center that bears the name of the man they loathe would be compromising their integrity too far and giving him too much power. The idea that there are some people who might actually consider this the sign that they have achieved their own lifelong dream is another example of their own elitism. And it shows the key difference between athletes and so much of the left-aligned America, such as Hollywood and academics.

Its telling that when Dodger manager Dave Roberts asked if he was going to take his World Series Dodgers to the White House after their victory this year, he didn't pause. He knows that this is about his players and his team, and politics should have nothing to do with it. To many of those in California who hate Trump with a passion this is a personal betrayal even though it has nothing to do with them personally but rather the athletes.

But its keeping with an increasingly deluded left-wing who somehow thinks that Trump is the cause of the all the problems in the country and yet paradoxically thinks that if they personally choose to ignore him, it will somehow deny his existence. But Trump exists. He is the President. He will be the president whether the Dodgers go to take a picture with him or if they don't. He will be there if he congratulates Olympians on their accomplishments or if he says nothing.  And I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a damn whether certain groups choose to ignore him. If anything, that only helps him with his base and does nothing to hurt him with it. It doesn't matter in the men's hockey team goes to the White House to get their pictures taken with him or the women's hockey team refuses too. Either way Trump is still the President, whether you get your picture taken with him or not.

The left has been engaging in this performative virtue signaling for over a decade making everything that happens no matter how minor a weapon in 'the war against Trump'.  How engaging in a No Kings protest or boycotting the State of the Union or, in my most recent missive from MoveOn, ordering the men's hockey team not to go the White House will do anything to change things for Americans or the world has never been made clear to me. It won't effect Trump one way or the other. If they show up, he can use it for publicity and tweet about how good he is, which will help him with his base. If they don't show up, he can tweet about how 'they're owned by the liberal left', which will help with his base.

There's nothing either  U.S. hockey team can do that will result in Donald Trump resigning. I'd like to believe at some basic level the left understands what seems perfectly obvious but since they've spent the last decade acting in fashion that makes me question their perception of reality just as much as those who are in the bubble of Fox News, I'm honestly not sure they do. Since so much of their well-being seems to be led in the belief that irritating the President is the exact same thing as the result of an election or a policy defeat (and the comments section on this site alone gives rise to their certainty of this fact) I think some of them genuinely believe that things like this 'send a message'.

And they do – just not to the people they think.

Similarly when during the Winter Olympics the very left-leaning Huffington Post published an article saying: "It's Okay To Feel Yucky About Rooting for USA During the Olympics" it was the kind of article that went beyond mere clickbait. It representing the deconstruction and negative nature of the left that has become more and more prominent during the time of Trump but has always been there.

This reading is perhaps the most simplistic yet, arguing that the athletes who represent Team USA are not individual athletes who have trained but are essentially representatives of America. And since the President is Trump they must therefore bare the responsibility of every single decision he has made as President even if they as individuals didn't vote for them. That this is counter to the argument that Trump doesn't  represent all of America (and certainly not the left) is another contradiction that these writers ignore.

One wonders if this logic applies to the athletes of every single nation that is competing. Speaking hypothetically does the French bobsledder bear the weight of the collapse of the Macron government? Does the British skier a representative of the failures of Keir Starmer? Would the Huffington Post even be writing this article had Harris won? That last is a trick question; of course they wouldn't.

This is another example of how, yet again, the left is just a mirror image of the man they despise.  The President genuinely seems to believe that everything that happens in America or the world is a personal reflection on him and him alone. By writing the Huffington Post makes the exact same argument, only unlike him they think it’s a bad thing. At this point no one could make the mistake of that publications contempt for the President; like almost everything with the progressives – and the focus of their hatred – their position could practically be seen from space. If beating this particular dead horse was an Olympic sport, they'd win medals every year.

But all this does is the only thing is has ever done. It makes it clear the working class voter that the left has an utter contempt for things that average people like because for whatever twisted reason (and I can't figure out most of them) they are examples of everything that is wrong with America. (There's nothing right with America with the majority of these thinkers, of course.) It makes them more inclined to vote Republican because the far right can point to these people, say they represent the Democratic party and therefore argue that the GOP is the only thing that can keep these 'un-American people' at bay. This gives the Republicans more power which in turn they will use to keep wrecking all the things that 'good people, which of course the left is, are in favor of.

And it's not like the left will ever do anything to help the Democrats in return. Politics, as they will be the first to tell you, is another corrupt and broken institution that only a sucker would get involved in. And yes there is one 'team' that is trying to destroy America but the 'other team' is usually not good enough for the left because most of them want to preserve America and all it stands for. Those values allow the left to say that America has absolutely no value but why should they join a team when they do that for free?

Because contempt for America among the left is one of the few place where the amateur spirit is uncorrupted by capitalism and all the dark parts of our institution. Hell sites like this are the best example where progressives can come and say the worst possible things about this country not for the money but for the sheer joy of it. Compared to that sites like The Huffington Post have a lot of work to do to catch up to the great ones here.