Now that the Olympics are over and their two most noteworthy gold medals, the men's and women's ice hockey championship, have been clawed by the gangrenous mitts of politics, we can now embrace the awfulness by association of the next two large-scale sporting events to be held in this country, the World Cup this summer and the 2028 Summer Olympics.
The men's team has been savaged for their open canoodling with the administration, all the way down to letting FBI Director Kash Patel behave like a confused assistant equipment manager, and the women's team has caught it for declining an invitation to visit the White House—clear cases of damned if you win, damned if you win again. The Olympics has always been a political windfall for whichever opportunistic swine is in position to exploit its champions, and given our developing taste for walking-and-talking toxicity in an ill-fitting suit, one can only imagine what we're in for in the next 30 months or so. But we're pretty sure you will take a more generous view of tanking when it comes.
The World Cup likely won't offer that level of inappropriate touching from the administration, if only because the U.S. is almost certain not to win, but ICE will be on hand to threaten athletes and citizens alike as part of their homage to the late 1930s, thus making the entire experience unpleasant for everyone while not dependent on where the Americans finish. The Olympics, though, will have its own flavor, and it is bathroom grout toothpaste.
First, it will be an election year, making everything fair game for whatever brand of sludge-soaked political grandstanding the White House can create. Second, the Summer Games are usually where America wins the predominance of the medals, thereby greatly enhancing the number of opportunities for Cabinet members to worm their way into team photos. Third, the big events will be in prime time, meaning the greatest number of Americans will be watching every grisly grandstand. No political operative would dare miss a single chance to embarrass their candidates by exposing their candidates. It's hate-campaigning done to the nines.
Oh, the early rounds will be fun, because nothing is yet at stake. And someone out there will try to out-Lægreid the coverage by tapping into the newly popular regretful-philanderer market because, hey, stardom is stardom. It's when the medals get handed out that things will get a bit too crunchy to the taste, because winning has a thousand parents, and many of them are abusive. Who in their right mind wants to be noticed by J.D. Vance for any reason?
The last two days have left the rest of the nation in a bit of a conundrum, re: allegiances in future events. Do you root for the U.S. because it's your country, damn it? Do you root against the U.S. because it's your country, damn it? Do you try to remain neutral because you're trying to mind your blood pressure? Do you pretend you're just too focused on NFL training camp news despite the fact that it's NFL training camp news? Do you spend the summer in the Reunion Islands because at least you can be safe there from the whole grim mudslide?
The answer to that has never been more convoluted. The most riveting lure and the greatest failing of the Olympics has always been the crutch of nationalism, one flagpole and tape recorded anthem after another. And if you're in on the Olympics, you're in on it because you cannot escape it. Your politics, such as they are, are all just grist for a grifter's mill, and Patel swigging beer from a bottle like one of the boys like Trump's mirthless bray as he expels some incomprehensible anecdote is part of the price of your addiction to what passes these days as the Olympic spirit.
The worst part of is, of course, that it is also the price the Olympics pays, because it cannot build that world class dressage center in Yuma without money provided by governments (well, it could, but as with any sporting venue larger than three folding chairs, it chooses not to). And without its gift for pandering to the powerful, the Olympics in its present form would not exist anyway to drop the odd unasked-for velodrome. Where there's money, fame and power to be made ... well, you know the rest.
So strap in, kids. Summer is on the way, and you are not meant to enjoy it, even if it means that you don't have to shovel your way from the front door to the mailbox like you're doing now. The athletes are just checkers on a giant board played by a series of minor Voldemorts, whether by their own choice or by trying to avoiding it, and as much fun as you might have along the way, your rooting interest in the U.S. now requires a bit of reinvention. The nation's two Olympic hockey teams just gave you a window to how this is probably going to work, so you can't say you weren't warned as to what the hangover is going to feel like ... sort of like two month-long concussion protocols, only without the distraction of murder stoats.
