Posted on 02/11/2026 1:06:22 PM PST by nickcarraway
Olympic patriotism for Team USA just isn’t the same anymore.
We had a schtick here at SB Nation circa 2014 with the Sochi Winter Olympics, or more aptly, a social media strategy that led us to posting endless, tongue-in-cheek, jingoistic patriotism during the games. There were the traditional medal counts and tracking the achievements of U.S. athletes that were earnest, but also intentionally cringy images of Ronald Regan riding a velociraptor, a muscled George Washington covered in bandoleers, and Abe Lincoln smoking cigars.
It’s horrifically clichéd now, but it wasn’t back then. The intention was to juxtapose the honest, legitimate pride we had in the U.S. Olympians, with an online voice of supreme egotism and bombast — complete with North Korea-esque propaganda art.
Everything is different 12 years later. The joke propaganda art is now merchandise of the president. The isolationist attitude, once spoken of in jest, is now official foreign policy. It hits different to front a “rah, rah, rah USA” persona when concentration camps are being constructed, foreign governments are being toppled, and influential alleged pedophiles are being protected at the behest of a justice department in lockstep with the executive branch.
It’s just not fun to be patriotic with these games. It’s something athletes are struggling with too, as Rich Ruohonen of Team USA Curling said this week.
I’m proud to be here to represent Team USA, and to represent out country — be’d be remiss if we didn’t at least mention what’s going on in Minnesota. […] I am a lawyer, as you know, and we have a constitution… and what’s happening in Minnesota is wrong. There’s no shades of gray. It’s clear.”
Freestyle skier Hunter Hess echoed a similar statement.
“Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.”
Snowboarding phenom Chloe Kim was also asked about the sociopolitical climate in the USA, and discussed how she felt as the child of immigrants, and how she wants the nation to lead with compassion, rather than its current path.
NBC is grappling with this dichotomy as a broadcaster as well. During the gold medal game in mixed curling on Tuesday, one member of the athletes’ family was seen wearing a hat with the United States’ flag and the words “ANTI-TRUMP” on it. Not long after, three more family members were seen with similar hats. NBC’s solution was to avoid showing the family after the first end, instead cutting away to reaction shots of more palatable, traditional patriotism from fans in the cheap seats.
This eerily echoed the decision of NBC to edit out the vociferous boos Vice President J.D. Vance received at the opening ceremony, which aired live, but were diligently removed for the ceremony’s re-broadcast in prime time. It serves as an effort to portray a happy, sanitized vision of a unified America, devoid of the horrors being perpetrated on immigrants, the erosion of our relationship with the international community, and a media landscape that has become far too comfortable with censoring anything which might draw the ire of the president to the point where he’ll jump on Truth Social and single them out.
We’re left with an uncomfortable, complicated reality where we can either cheer for individual athletes and their stories, or put blinders on and still simply root for the USA like nothing else is happening in our nation. It’s a bad feeling either way. Normally it’s fun to cheer for the flag and our athletes representing it, with the only thing being U.S. excellence on our minds — but not right now. The sheen is gone from these games, and we’re left to navigate the messiness as best we can.
We were great. Not anymore.
SOBnation is more like it. Who’s forcing these aholez to compete?
But sure, low IQ commies (like the whining author of this bitch-fest) being commies is all Donald Trump's fault.
If you idiots don’t like what’s going on in the country, which the majority of Americans voted for and support, then turn down the participation money, the endorsements from American companies, and any medals you might win.
The Olympics were ruined long before Trump ever became POTUS.
Someone should ask these America disparaging nitwits what ALL of the other countries immigration laws are .... and, dare them to lambaste said countries, like they are the USA.
Forgive me for changing the subject but there were GI’s on about a 100 mile front all enduring the cold on December 16th, 1944. Many of them east of Bastogne/St. Vith, too.
Winning medals for the USA is great and all for the team sports, but individuals, I never really cared all that much who won them, if they were a great story.
I remember as a kid cheering Franz Klammer in the downhill.
“Forgive me for changing the subject but there were GI’s on about a 100 mile front all enduring the cold on December 16th, 1944. Many of them east of Bastogne/St. Vith, too.”
And getting tortured in the Hanoi Hilton some for 7 years. I have met them
And breathing in burn pit fumes in Ryadh
Yes
All of the complainers on the team of the United States should be immediately thrown off the team for the rest of their lives. In the meantime hopefully they will lose everything they participate in. Pathetic unpatriotic ingrates.
Especially in the Summer Games, a lot of the International Athletes actually attended US Universities, in fact they should march for the US University they attended rather than the country, I know UF would be near the top of the schools if they did that.
Those others are there to compete not to involve themselves in politics. Let the bad eggs be the ones to be scorned.
These other people have worked hard and they don’t need to have to speak for those assholes bad behavior.
Liberals are Pathetic Drama Queen Crybabies
It’s their constant schtick
They have nothing else
Written from the perspective of “When the left isn’t in charge, things just aren’t right.”
They are what is, all else isn’t. It is abnormal or illegal to not have a Democrat in charge.
Our democracy = their democracy = they are always in charge, you shut up and obey. Or else.
Or else, it just doesn’t feel patriotic
Or else, you get cancelled
Or else mobs show up to “agitate”
Or else they don’t have to respect the law and can do whatever they want.
Or else, well, just ask Charlie Kirk what else.
Wisconsin makes an excellent cheese that would go with that whine.
Well, Donald Trump wasn't still in high school, but I clearly remember those two wankers in 1968 giving the black power raised fist on the awards podium.
Nothing new about America-haters on the U.S. Olympic team.
I simply disagree. If they did, it would go a long way to get the American public behind them more.
THE LEFT HATES THE USA.
I can only do my part by not watching and maybe join in boycotts of sponsers if that gets going.
The theme of the 2026 Election and every Election going forward should be American Nationalism vs Marxist globalism.
No, the left want’s to submerge The USA into a global one world government.
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