Tokyo Olympics marred by politics

I really don’t know how very long I’ll be in a position to just take the Tokyo Olympics.

The Games are scarcely underway, but I’m already turned off by the annoying political grandstanding.

On Wednesday, our cocky women’s soccer workforce took a knee just prior to the begin of their match against Sweden. So did the Swedish team and the referee.

Then, as each individual international soccer lover appreciates, the Swedes proceeded to crush mighty Crew Usa, 3-, ending its 44-match profitable streak and making it very challenging for our females to acquire the gold medal everybody predicted they’d earn.

Women’s groups from Terrific Britain, Chile and New Zealand also proved they could be virtuous social justice warriors by taking to their knees right before their video games started off.

I’m not just guaranteed what — or who — all these international athletes had been protesting.

Below at dwelling, it is normally racism, discrimination and inequality, all of which exist all over the environment in varying degrees and all of which we all concur are not great matters.

But even devoid of the unwelcome but predictable intrusion of politics, the Olympic Video games in Tokyo have been not heading to be so great to view.

First of all, since of Japan’s the latest surge in COVID circumstances, there will be no spectators.

Plus, no athletes hugging. No handshakes. No joyous staff celebrations. Just empty stadiums and arenas — and way too considerably politics.

I’m currently genuinely tired of all the woke politics that are poisoning athletics — and everything else in America, from community well being to college campuses to late night time Tv shows.

Sporting activities utilized to be a place in which for a couple of several hours you could escape the never ever-ending political problems in the earth.

But pro basketball now has been wrecked by the politics that have wrecked its Tv set rankings and turned off a large segment of its enthusiast base. The NFL’s Television ratings also have plummeted simply because of politics.

Now politics are ruining the Olympics.

I know I was not the only American who was not sad when our powerhouse men’s basketball workforce — composed mostly of NBA all-stars — dropped two game titles in the warmups to the Olympics.

How can any person really feel unhappy for a bunch of multimillionaires who’ve been using knees for the duration of the Nationwide Anthem, pointing fingers at their state for becoming systematically racist and charging fifty percent of their white countrymen with staying white supremacists?

By disrespecting the region that has provided them much more liberty, opportunity and riches than any other place on Earth, these social justice athletes — specialist and novice — are only hurting by themselves and their brings about in the extended operate.

If anything, by unfairly slurring all white persons as inherently racist, they’re truly turning some white individuals into racists — together with some of their very own supporters.

My wife Colleen and I view and take pleasure in intercontinental soccer all the time. We really do not see superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo getting knees and spoiling their sport with the poison of politics.

When I change on the Olympics I don’t want to see politics, both. I want to check out a excellent sporting event, be very pleased of my country’s athletes and root for them to acquire.

Individuals employed to really feel happy when our groups went to the Olympics and racked up medals in monitor and industry or swimming, especially when the good Usa-USSR rivalry was a proxy for the Cold War.

But when our women’s soccer group was humiliated by Sweden this 7 days, it didn’t trouble me just one bit — because of the politics. Thousands and thousands of other Americans evidently felt the exact same.

Due to the fact of politics, our Olympics groups don’t make a good deal of us happy any longer.

Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an writer, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Basis. Ship comments to [email protected] and abide by @reaganworld on Twitter.