"Shut Up and Ski"

Prior to the opening ceremonies of the 2026 Winter Olympics, American freestyle skater Chris Lillis remarked

I love the USA. I would never want to represent a different country in the Olympics. With that being said, a lot of times, athletes are hesitant to talk about political views and how we feel about things.

I feel heartbroken about what’s happening in the United States. I’m pretty sure you’re referencing ICE and some of the protests and things like that," he continued. "I think that, as a country, we need to focus on respecting everybody’s rights and making sure that we’re treating our citizens as well as anybody, with love and respect. I hope that when people look at athletes compete in the Olympics, they realize that that’s the America we’re trying to represent.

Colleague Hunter Hess expressed a similar sentiment, went slightly further and was critized by President Donald Trump and other conservative snowflakes. (But I repeat myself.). So afterward, he clarified

I love my country. There is so much that is great about America, but there are always things that could be better.

One of the many things that makes this country so amazing is that we have the right and the freedom to point that out. The best part of the Olympics is that it brings people together, and when so many of us are divided we need that more than ever. I cannot wait to represent Team USA next week when I compete."

It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think. It’s a little hard. There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t," Hess said.

I think, for me, it’s more I’m representing my friends and family back home, the people that represented it before me, all the things that I believe are good about the U.S. If it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.

I just kind of want to do it for my friends and my family and the people that support me getting here.

But any deviation from complete loyalty to Herr Trump has become risky. And so it was that talk radio host Boomer Esiason, a former New York Jets and Cincinnatti Bengals quarterback, was asked on February 10 whether such skiers, who ended up winning a gold medal were "happy to represent America."  He told his co-host on their New York City show

They seem to be happy to represent America.  Not everybody is buy everybody should just pipe down and just do their sport and play for our country and respect the flag and respect everything that's going on.

Threre are at least two excellent responses to Esiason's response, the first no less valid because of being obvious. Rick Strom of TYT Sports reminds us that sports is in fact heavily politicized:

If it's not the place for political statements, why do we have flyovers from fighter jets that are sent to different parts of the world to kill people and wipe out regions for United States imperialism. Why do we see Palantir's sponsors on the scoreboard? That occurred. Why do we see Ring, who's partnering with Floc to surveil us for police departments and now the Department of Homeland Security? That is a political move.

Why do we allow poltiicans to attend games? Those are poltical acts. Why do we allow the President to go on a nationally televised game for an interview/discssion during said televised game? Why is the United States flag on the field? Why is the national anthem played? Why do we have military reunions that the NFL partnered with the military for?

The flyovers are a brazen military maneuver conducted to ensure support for any military action, but especially for continually expanding the Pentagon's budget, expected to be a record $838.7 billion for fiscal 2026, $8 billion more than the Department requested. And Donald Trump is a member of professional wrestling's largest promotion, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), with which he has a close connection, and of the company's Hall of Fame. Even before being elected in 2016, Donald appeared at Wrestlemania XXIII and was participated in the Battle of the Billionaires. A long-time mixed martial arts fan, the President is set to host with the Ultimate Fighting Championship on June 14 the first live professional sporting event on the South Lawn of the White House. 

Even better, though including a point media will ignore, was the rant of ESPN host Michael Ryan Ruiz of the Dan Le Batard Show, who directed his comments toward Esiason, maintaining (profanity left in because, well, that's what he said)

Say what you mean. Say it wih your chest. You chickenshit. Because your MAGA-coated bullshit has been going on for ten years. The guy has been in office for a second time because his whole platform is how much this country stinks. Yet you sit on the sidelines when Nick Bosa wears a MAGA hat post-game. Ehere's the same energy?

I'm a sports fan. My soccer team won the club World Cup. He was on the freakin' stage. I had to eat it. I'm a NASCAR fan. Riley Gaines is giving incantations. The President is literally taking laps at the Daytona Motor Speedway. 

It took me 45 minutes to get into the national championship game because the Secret Service is there checking everybody because he so effectively uses sports to sportswash his image. And yet I've had to eat it. You got your way. They're not kneeling during the anthem. They're doing every thing they can so you can live in your little bubble and not be threatened by the reality of your decisions, the cost of what you actually voted for. 

The liberals, the left, they all had to eat it because you gus were so loud, and so soft, and so triggered. But you can't tune in to the Winter Olymics, a sport that you probably only worry about every four years and you don't want to be faced with the reality that maybe some people- and according to the polling, a hell of a lot of people- aren't exactly thrilled with how things are going in this country and they are using their one moment, in most cases, to highlight that because that is universally American. And you want them to shut up? Quit being a pussy, Boomer Esiason. Put your name to it. Say what you fucking mean.

Ruiz referred to "your MAGA-coated" b.s. and "you got your way" because Esiason is a consrvative who condemned Colin Kaepernick and celebrated Donald's recent election victory. And he urged Esiason to "put your name to it" because the ex QB is not coming clean on partiality to right-wing politics.

Nevertheless, Ruiz's most important point came early: "the guy has been in office for a second time because his whole platform is how this country stinks."

This is something both the media and the Democratic Party completely miss. In Trump's first inaugural speech, he described what he viewed as "American carnage."  Between Donald's two terms, he attacked the USA as "rigged, crooked, and evil." Early in this term, he claimed Americans are "bloated, fat,  and disgusting." He has been determined to undermine a range of American insitutions, both rhetorically and in practice. His campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again," reinforces this contempt- no need to make something "again" if it no longer is. 

His "whole platform is how much this country stinks." Ultimately, skiing is not the issue. The freedom to criticize one's own government is. And so is the movement whose leader brooks no criticism of its leader and god, and a nation which will does not acknowledge that its President believes it is loathsome.

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