My fellow Americans, we’ve come a long way from post-Marshall Plan beloved. We’ve strayed far from the kind of good will accrued overseas post-9/11.
Now, even the likable, well-intentioned best of our sliding and otherwise winter-adept athletes get a measure of, er, skepticism as they parade into the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Northern Italy. JD Vance, not in the least bit likable but in attendance nonetheless, got it worse, with outright boos, which a majority of us watching back home in the States perhaps could nod along with approvingly.
It’s probably too late for this summer’s World Cup here to be affected, but how long before countries start dropping out of the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games in protest of the host nation’s civil and human rights abuses and Russian-style aggression across borders?
If there were to be a change of venue, I hear Montreal is lovely in the summertime. What’s more, it’s got a surplus of sports infrastructure left over from the famously budget-busting 1976 Games, just waiting to be repopulated and repurposed.
Canadians. They received a rousing ovation Friday at San Siro Stadium in Milan, during ceremonies with the theme of harmony.
Canada. I always liked that joke about the country’s founding: “This is great, we’ll have the best of all worlds: British government, French culture, and American know-how. Instead we got French government, American culture, and British know-how.”
Still, there’s an argument to be made that down here in the Lower 48 we’d be better off if we had just let King George off the hook.
And let’s not get started on all the well-adjusted, hale and hearty Europeans on view at the Games, with their annoyingly sane lack of extreme economic inequality and gun violence, their abundant health care and growing curbs on damaging tech.
As for the American Olympians, it’s sad to watch them twist themselves into pretzels when asked about the nation they’re representing.
“Of course we support and love the people in America who love and support us,” Amber Glenn, a top figure skater from Texas, told the media, sentiments that were echoed publicly by a number of other athletes. “But luckily figure skating is a totally separate thing from the government. We are here as Team U.S.A., not as representatives of the government.” A comment for which she received death threats.
In a segment NBC pretaped to introduce her to viewers, Glenn charmingly spoke of her “nerdy” fondness for Magic: The Gathering, a role-playing card game, and of her pride in being “a representative for the queer community. . . . I want people to know skating is like love, it’s there for everyone that wants to do it, and I hope that you can feel comfortable and safe in your life.”
May her Olympic spirit shine.