Staff Reports
The Milan-Cortina Winter Games were supposed to be an apolitical celebration of athletic excellence, but once again the left’s identity machinery has turned the ice into a culture-war stage. Outlets and community sites are openly cheering tribal slogans like “rooting for everybody Black,” turning support for competitors into a political checklist instead of celebrating grit and achievement. This isn’t reporting; it’s crowding out true sports coverage with identity-group marketing.
Conservatives aren’t blind to representation — we cheer for underdogs and Americans who work hard — but there’s a glaring double standard when tribal solidarity is praised for some groups and condemned for others. The predictable outrage when white athletes show normal in-group pride shows how bankrupt the media’s moralizing has become: merit and patriotism are dismissed unless repackaged in woke catechisms. Americans who actually love this country are tired of being lectured by pundits who only watch sports to score cultural-points.
NBC’s decision to parade celebrity activists across the primetime desk is emblematic of the rot: Snoop Dogg’s return as an Olympics face was treated as a ratings trophy, not a serious broadcasting choice. Networks are choosing spectacle over substance, banking on hip, woke celebrities to distract from thin event coverage and to normalize politics in what used to be a neutral international stage. When entertainment trumps fair reporting, hardworking viewers get short-changed and the games become another product in the cultural conveyor belt.
Meanwhile, political theater has leaked into athlete interviews and security arrangements at the Games, with U.S. involvement from ICE sparking protests abroad and comments from American athletes denouncing their own country’s policies. The controversy over ICE agents’ limited security role in Milan has been widely reported, and several U.S. competitors used press time to air grievances about enforcement actions back home, fueling a predictable conservative backlash. If the Olympics are meant to unify, athletes and the press should stop weaponizing them to lecture the world about American politics.
There’s also the uncomfortable trend of American-born athletes choosing other flags and becoming poster children for globalist ad campaigns — the Eileen Gu saga remains a vivid example of divided loyalties when national pride meets corporate opportunism. Young stars who grew up and trained here but choose to represent foreign powers make it harder to sell the narrative that the Games are all about nation-building and honest competition. Fans who paid taxes, cheered in the stands, and supported youth sports deserve athletes who at least show gratitude and clarity about where their loyalties lie.
And now even comedians who politely say “I’m not here to be political” get smeared and slotted into partisan boxes by the outrage machine — Kevin James’ refusal to turn his comedy into a political audition became fodder for viral hot takes. Hollywood’s demand that entertainers signal on every issue has turned private neutrality into evidence of guilt in some circles, while the rest of America just wants a laugh without being preached to. The daily rush to brand, cancel, or coronate public figures for the sake of clicks shows how low our media standards have sunk.
Here’s the simple, patriotic takeaway: Americans should demand an Olympics that honors hard work, national pride, and fair play — not a woke morality play, not foreign propaganda by proxy, and not celebrity PR disguised as journalism. Turn off the virtue-signaling anchors, watch the athletes for their talent, and call out the double standards when media elites cheer identity politics from one corner and scold natural solidarity from another. If you love this country, you’ll defend the principle that excellence and patriotism matter more than the latest culture-war trend.
