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This forum seems to be missing the biggest actual culture war battleground of the week: The US Hockey Gold Medal team.
For those who haven't heard, the US Men's Hockey Team won the gold medal over Canada, on an overtime goal by Jack Hughes. The team celebrated, the country celebrated, and everything was great, until it wasn't.
Kash Patel was part of the celebration, for some reason. Apparently he's a hockey fan, as I've read he was attending games when Ovechkin was nearing Gretzky's goal record. And then there was a call from Donald Trump to congratulate the team, where he made a joke ("I'll have to invite the women's team, too, or they'll impeach me.")
Of course, the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork to scold then men for being bros.
Jodi Walker called them losers.
The New York Times decided to praise the defector while shaming the victorious Americans.
Mary Clarke says that they failed to meet the cultural moment, and boy is she waging the culture war. Some highlights include reminding us that a black woman won a gold medal in hockey, bemoaning that the NHL is 44% Republican, decrying the hiring of someone accused of and found not guilty of sexual assault, implying his guilt.
Then, finally, she has the gall to say this:
Well, Mary, you are responsible for writing the message of this team, and you are participating in making sure the message you dislike is the one that's getting spread.
For a reasonable take, I always go back to the characteristic machine:
And a quoted response
This really does cut to the core of it. There is a civic ritual, which we can all participate in. Civic in a way that crosses race and sex and religion, or should, at least. But not anymore. We are not allowed to have civic rituals unless they pay obeisance to the cult of multiculturalism, unless they celebrate black women and foreigners and anyone but straight white men.
ETA: Two more posts, more from the fans with substacks and less from the professional pundits:
Don't Let Them Fucking Take It From You
The Sports Exile
This second one really pissed me off, and this quote in particular. Patriotism was abandoned by the left, not weaponized by the right. You left (pun intended). As evidenced by a later paragraph:
"I'm proud to be an American" "Wow, why do you only care about yourself, why don't you care about me?"
They reveal themselves as unamerican at every opportunity.
The FBI director being a fanboy is cringe, but that's all.
Trump's joke was barely worth a sensible chuckle, but there's one constant in all waves of feminism, which is that the feminism light bulb joke makes sense:
Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!
Anyway, the men's hockey team will still be up to their ears in "female attention" should they want it, the bitching of sportswriters notwithstanding.
I don't even know see it's cringe, honestly.
Depends on if he was there on thr government's dime while pretending to work. Which, granted, is kind of the American Dream, but you're supposed to pretend to be kind of discreet about it with something resembling a fig leaf of plausible deniability.
At least when submitting your expense report.
He claimed he was there to meet with Italian police about security in advance of the 2028 games in Los Angeles. That would seem plausible if the guy wasn't already under criticism for having a suspicious number of "business trips" to cities that just so happen to be holding events he wants to attend. The meeting was the day prior and lasted less than an hour. Meanwhile, he attended two hockey games while he was there from Friday night to Sunday night and attended two hockey games, plus a couple other "official" events that were basically just 20 minute photo ops. I can assure you that if, at any of the firms I've worked for, I used an hour-long meeting as a justification to put plane tickets and hotel rooms on the company credit card in cities where the Penguins happened to be playing away games that I attended, I would, at the very least, get a stern talking to, assuming they didn't fire me on the spot.
Who cares if it is plausible? It's the Olympics, men like sports, powerful people need time off too. He's the director of the FBI, the last few guys were spying on Senators and Presidents, for comparison.
That's fair yeah that's a very common corporate norm yeah. But there's also an entire world of high-powered corporate big swinging-dicks where rewarding yourself with big dinners and work trips is just a perk of the work.
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Politician and junkets? I am shocked, shocked I tell you! Let me tell you about Irish politicians and Cheltenham. Half of them head over for the racing and sometimes you'd hope they'd stay gone.
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