Southpaw 45: Our Newest America-Haters
Conservatives are taking a leaf out of the left's playbook: rooting against Team U.S.A.
Dear readers,
As you well know, the headlines this week were dominated by Simone Biles’s decision to withdraw from the remaining gymnastics events in Tokyo, citing the strain the Games were placing on her mental health. Reactions to Biles’s decision have ranged from the heartwarming to the heinous—tracking, unsurprisingly, with the severity of the commenter’s cultural-war-induced brain rot.
Everyone and their sister have written about Biles this week, but here are three stories we think are indispensable to understanding what’s at stake in her decision.
“Simone Biles was abandoned by American Olympic officials, and the torment hasn’t stopped,” by Sally Jenkins in The Washington Post (July 29, 2021).
“The One Limit Simone Biles Wouldn’t Break,” by Ryu Spaeth in New York Magazine (July 30, 2021).
“What's happening inside Simone Biles' brain when the 'twisties' set in?” by Nicoletta Lanese in Live Science (July 31, 2021).
And now, for something slightly lighter than our usual fare. Hope you enjoy!
-Ian and Calder
The rise of the anti-anti-anti-American Right
Ever seen Rocky IV? After running out of ideas stateside for Mr. Balboa, the franchise’s creators decide to send him to the USSR, where he fights a character engineered for success in the Soviet labs, the more-machine-than-man Ivan Drago. By the conclusion of the fight, Rocky’s qualities as a plucky underdog win over the Soviet crowd, presumably ending the Cold War then and there.
How about Miracle? This 2004 Disney movie is based on the true story of the U.S. men’s hockey team—made up of amateurs—who shocked the world by defeating the USSR in the semifinals of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, ultimately taking home the gold. Kurt Russell, playing coach Herb Brooks, unites a group of young men from Massachusetts and Minnesota—who knew they could get along?—all of whom have nascent drinking problems and strained familial relationships. The opposing Soviets are, as always, stone-faced and machine-like.
For decades, American leftists have mocked pop culture like this, correctly pointing out that churning out Hollywood hits about the scrappy underdog American is ridiculous on its face. In fact, the leftmost flank of American politics—generally beset by constant infighting—has long been united by one activity alone: rooting against Team USA during international athletic competition. Watching Team U.S.A. get walloped by actual underdogs—especially those from countries the United States has attempted to colonize at one point or another—has been one of the very few comforts afforded to the American leftist.
But now, as the Olympic Games chug along in Tokyo, the left’s virtual monopoly on America-hating is under threat—and from the American right, no less.
We have only one question: What the fuck is going on?
In a monologue delivered on Monday, Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield took a page directly right out of the left’s playbook, admittingly openly that he is “happy [when] a U.S. team loses in the Olympics,” and that he is rooting against “not only Megan Rapinoe and her merry band of America-hating female soccer players,” but also the “collection of whiney, overpaid social justice warriors” and “anthem kneelers” who make up the USA men’s basketball team. Stinchfield went on to use the oldest trick in the leftist’s playbook: blaming the team’s athletic failure on their political ideology. “As the level of social justice nonsense described as activism increases in America,” he said, “the success of these woke stars diminishes.” If you haven’t watched the full segment already, you really must. It is a masterclass in the sort of category-error-riddled America-hating that the left has spent hundreds of years trying to perfect.
Stinchfield has good company. At a rally in Phoenix last week, former Hater-in-Chief Donald Trump egged a crowd of his adoring admirers into booing the U.S. women’s national soccer team. “Wokeism makes you lose, ruins your mind, and ruins you as a person. You become warped, you become demented,” said Trump. “The U.S. women’s soccer team is a very good example of what’s going on.” (We won’t even go into all of the hate that Simone Biles has gotten this week from right-wing chuds for essentially admitting to an injury.)
If we sit down and think about it, the anti-American turn in the right’s rhetoric probably just reveals what we already knew: that the conservative movement defines “America” using racial categories of analysis that allow only conservative white men to claim that label. When people who fall outside of that category claim to represent America, the right feels entirely justified in rejecting America as a whole. Also, returning to Rocky IV and Miracle for a moment, the end of the Cold War and the rise of a new global geopolitical order has undermined the traditional spirit of “us vs. them” that used to undergird the Olympics, making way for the adversarial logic of domestic politics to swoop in and take its place. As progressive athletes try to wrest power from the U.S. Olympic Committee and use their platforms to advance social good, it’s easier for people on the left to root for them and people on the right to root against them.
We will merely point out what we think is obvious: that the new right’s foray into anti-Americanism at the Olympics is clearly an effort to shatter the left’s monopoly on America-hating and undermine the basis of its unity. What are we supposed to do now? Root for Team USA at the Olympics? Feel … patriotic?
RODNEY’S ROUNDUP
Do you want to read about . . .
. . . why women are the voice of protest at the Olympics? “Female athletes grab spotlight at Olympics with political and social demonstrations,” by Antonio Planas in NBC News (July 27, 2021).
. . . the “full-scale revanchist wave” sweeping over the sporting world? “Speak Out and Play,” by Dave Zirin in The Progressive Magazine (July 30, 2021).
. . . the downside of new sports at the Olympics? “How the Olympics’ Thirst for Youth Subculture Steamrolls the Sports We Love,” by Dvora Meyers in Vice (July 28, 2021).
. . . why these Olympics are falling flat with American viewers? “The Tokyo Games went on. But American viewers aren’t coming along,” by Ben Strauss in The Washington Post (August 31, 2021).