I don’t care … and I won’t stop talking about it!
This is one of my favorite MAGA media commandments. It comes up around any cultural event that they deem threatening to their values — read: Super Bowl, Olympics. And it exists on a matrix across from the quadrant I inhabit: I care so so so much … and I also won’t stop talking about it!
Luckily I found someone to jump in that bobsled with me. Wide Left’s Arif Hasan and I chatted on a Substack Live the day after the Super Bowl to pick apart the dueling halftime shows and their respective reactions — including:
The NFL’s national and international audience plays
What happens when fans feel betrayed
The battle over defining what “America” is
Give it a watch, give him a follow, I think you’ll love it. I’m gonna share something Arif said about the TPUSA counterprogramming to Bad Bunny that has stuck with me:
“It’s just like this confused messaging where they build all of these grievances together — which have contradictory visions of American values — and paste them together into one show.”
Newsflash: That doesn’t work. In the 24 hours since we talked, it became so clear that there are two billowing red flags rising on the right, together they create an intense cognitive dissonance. The first gives us a sense of what it looks like to try (and fail) to create a parallel mainstream culture.
Nevermind that the goalposts are in constant motion — e.g. Benny Johnson saying, “The point was never to ‘beat’ the NFL in total views.” (Ummm a lot of people said it was). There’s a word that came up multiple times, from people with disparate views of the GOP, from Christopher F. Rufo to Nick Fuentes: ghettoization.
Elective removal and roping off of conservative culture, which has been the long-term project of those waging the multi-front culture war, has suddenly turned toxic. That feels new … and big. What naturally flows downstream from that awareness? Distortion. Deceit. Lies.
It’s quite inelegant dishonesty, too. Not to whack Benny Johnson again, but he made it easy: He posted a completely fake poll made to look like it’s from TMZ that showed Kid Rock winning for better performance. A whole bunch of influencers took that energy and ran, posting deceptive screenshots of Kid Rock topping the “charts” — in this case units purchased on iTunes … something nobody does anymore.
A reporter for conservative site Red State put the problem like this: “...a movement that lies to itself about what’s actually popular sets itself up for failure, and sets its supporters up to feel completely blindsided.”
99 PROBLEMS
Complaints have obviously not been limited to the Benito Bowl. Below are some compounding Olympics grievances I think are worth your time.
Hunter Hess should be sent home: The Team USA skier’s comments rose all the way to the top of the org chart, eliciting a reaction from the president himself. An avalanche followed — he’s bringing the “Bud Light effect” upon himself, he and the other skiers are doing a Colin Kaepernick, he is “lowdown, dirty, scummy, and gross.”
“Miracle on Ice” team captain and legend, Mike Eruzione, tweeted his disagreement with Hunter Hess’ comments which got a ton of pickup in right-wing circles. It’s since been deleted because he “was asked to.” Mysterious …
The Opening Ceremony was satanic, again: Viral posts claim a “clearly visible upside down pentagram” reveals the devil worship behind these games. May I remind you, the same was said about the Opening Ceremony in France two years ago.
Eileen Gu is a communist: The superstar freestyle skier, Stanford student, model, and 2022 gold medalist came in second today. But her commitment to Team China took the top spot in peoples’ minds, with many advocating for open hate against her.
Logan Dobson: “...perhaps we can all come together to hate on the true villain of the 2026 olympics [...] who betrayed us to ski for the commies.”
Theo Wold: “Eileen Gu [...] deserves more hate than any other athlete at the games.”
Honorable mentions:
“I don’t want my taxpayer dollars going to these woke athletes”
Team USA is 0% taxpayer funded, which apparently Rep. Van Orden (that first link) doesn’t even know.
VP Vance is “single-handedly normalizing children in public”
I didn’t know they had yet to be normalized
The Olympics were never political before now
I am begging you to read a book
I would never watch the Olympics, but I am dedicating all my attention to it online
ON MY PODIUM
My ulterior motive with this post is to infect you with the Olympics bug that has lived inside me for decades. I have recently become aware of its strength, when my sports agnostic boyfriend suddenly yelled at the TV that Japanese figure skater Shun Sato was robbed. Potent. Here are some Situations I’m Monitoring™️.
The IOC has banned Ukrainian skeleton … driver? Rider? Flyer? What do you call someone who does skeleton … a skeletoner? Whatever … Vladyslav Heraskevych from wearing a helmet with photos of his deceased fellow countrymen. “Some of them were my friends.”
Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (ok letters!!!) runs a sub-six-minute mile … in skis … uphill for the gold. Like, what do you MEAN?
What’s in the wossa? 52-year-old Austrian snowboarder, Claudia Riegler, becomes the oldest female competitor in Winter Olympics history. Her Austrian counterpart, Benjamin Karl earned a back-to-back gold medal in giant slalom at the age of 40.
The bronze medalist in biathlon — a sport that involves guns and skiing — celebrated his win by admitting that he cheated on his girlfriend three months ago, that this has been the worst week of his life, and that he’s committing “social suicide” in hopes of getting her back. Would this work on you? Please leave a comment.
Haiti’s Stevenson Savart became the country’s first cross-country skier to compete in the Winter Olympics. The video of him finishing is everything.
After spending the weekend railing against anti-American sportsmanship, influencer (I will not call him a boxer) Jake Paul revealed the existence of a softer side, when his fiancée Jutta Leerdam broke the Olympic record in speed skating.
LOOSE ENDS
📝 Word I learned today: bonspiel
a match or tournament between curling clubs — “Scruffy city bonspiel brings curling to Knoxville”
📰 Something you should read today: Germany’s Philipp Raimund, ski jumper with a fear of heights, wins Olympic gold — Rebecca Tauber
*Grace note: His fear rattled him enough to drop out of the ski jumping World Cup last year. This picture is everything.
🥹 Something to make you smile today: In case all of the above was not enough (greedy), I’ll provide you with a have-to-see-it-to-believe-it level photo from my favorite event of the year, AKC Meet the Breeds. Your eyes do not deceive you. That is a dog, descendant of wolves.
