The Right Is Rooting Against America’s Olympic Athletes

The moral sickness of the American political right - especially among Trump cultists and acolytes - is only increasing as many on the right root against and denigrate America's Olympic athletes.  Black and LGBT athletes draw particular fire, especially Simone Biles who is black and, therefore, viewed as not a "true American" by these repulsive people.  Also drawing attacks are athletes who sided with calls for racial justice/equality.  Indeed, unless one is a flag waving neo-Nazi and look like a candidate for a Hitler youth program, one could suddenly find themselves targeted.  A piece in Vanity Fair looks at this latest hate mongering from the right.  Not surprisingly, Der Trumpenfuhrer is leading the hate fest.  Here are excerpts:

As American athletes compete on the world stage in the Tokyo Olympics, many on the right aren’t cheering them on. “The collection of whiny, overpaid social justice warriors are very hard to root for,” said Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield, adding that he took “pleasure” in Team USA’s basketball loss this month because of its players’ “woke” politics. “The team is filled with anthem kneelers, and I find it ironic they are willing to put USA across their chests, but in the not-so-distant past, they would kneel for the anthem.” In addition to taking pleasure in the men’s basketball team’s loss, Stinchfield also noted that he found himself “rooting against…Megan Rapinoe and her merry band of America-hating female soccer players.”

Stinchfield’s comments come on the heels of Donald Trump suggesting at a Phoenix rally last weekend that Team USA’s recent loss to Sweden was caused by the progressive politics of its athletes. “Wokeism makes you lose, ruins your mind, and ruins you as a person,” he said. “You become warped. You become demented.” Trump, who goaded the crowd into booing the U.S. women’s soccer team, went on to say that “Americans were happy” about the team’s defeat.

Politics certainly isn’t stopping at water’s edge, as the Olympics, traditionally a moment of national unity, has become the latest front in the culture wars. Right-wing politicians and pundits, apparently incensed that some athletes have spoken out against racial injustice and on other social issues, are now seizing on setbacks as evidence that American athletes on the court and field aren’t fit to represent the United States. Star Olympian Simone Biles was branded a public enemy by conservative talkers for dropping out of her role in the gymnastics team finals.

Among those criticizing Biles was right-wing sports radio host Clay Travis, who appeared on Fox News on Tuesday. “I think this is a massive issue for the United States women’s Olympics gymnastics team that she’s decided to quit in the middle of competition. We’ve never seen this happen,” he said, adding that Biles should not “be praised” for her decision and should never have “started the competition” in the first place.

Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing youth group Turning Point USA, went even further in denigrating Biles, calling her a “selfish sociopath” on his podcast. “You know who has the gold medal? Russia! I have to go look at these four-foot-11 Russian Olympians chewing on their gold medals smirking at the Americans,” Kirk seethed, before claiming that America is “raising a generation of weak people like Simone Biles.”

The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer, responding to Kirk’s comments about Biles, suggested “that every Trumpist pundit understands the ravenous appetite their audiences have for belittling the tremendously successful black people they see on television, and rushes to meet every opportunity to do it.”

Biles, who was a survivor of sexual assault at the hands of former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, further explained her decision to pull out of the Tokyo Games by sharing an Instagram post penned by former gymnast Andrea Orris. “It makes me so frustrated to see comments about Simone not being mentally tough enough or quitting on her team,” Orris wrote in a message, which Biles reposted to her Instagram story. “We are talking about the same girl who was molested by her team doctor throughout her entire childhood and teen years, won the World All-Around Championship title while passing a kidney stone, put her body through an extra year of training through the pandemic, [and] added so much difficulty to her routines that the judges literally do not know how to properly rate her skills because they are so ahead of her time.” 

Disgusting.