AS I SEE IT COLUMN: The Olympics reveal the rot in modern conservatism

So much for the Olympics being about peace, harmony and unity. Just hours after the Olympics’ opening ceremonies shared its vision of sport bringing people together, the U.S. president and many of his followers verbally attacked an American Olympian.

I wish I could say this is unprecedented, but it’s not. At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics the U.S. president actively cheered against his nation’s women’s soccer team because he didn’t like their criticism.

Fast forward to the winter games going on in Italy, and once again the perpetually-aggrieved president took to social media to verbally assault an American Olympian. Yet again the president’s deep psychological, emotional and cognitive decline was on display for the entire world to see.

“U.S. Olympic Skier (sic), Hunter Hess, a real Loser (sic), says he doesn’t represent his Country (sic) in the current Winter Olympics,” wrote the president. “If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team (sic), and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this.”

And what was the dastardly, controversial thing that the freestyle skier said in Italy that so upset the president and his MAGA snowflakes?

“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now,” said Hess. “There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of.”

When you consider two Americans have been murdered by masked ICE agents and that a five-year-old boy from Minneapolis was detained and sent to a deportation camp in Texas, having “mixed feelings” seems decidedly restrained, almost polite.

Here’s a quick history lesson for the many right-wingers that place feelings above facts and emotions over evidence: the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution explicitly grants freedom of speech to all Americans, not just conservatives and right-wingers.

What is particularly infuriating is the gob-smacking hypocrisy in all of this. The president and his followers are enraged at an American Olympian for saying something as benign as having “mixed feelings” about what is happening in his country, but they are totally fine with the president posting a video that shows Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

Imagine how hate-filled you have to be to want your fellow countryman or woman to fail at the Olympics simply because you have different political opinions. This unhinged, repulsive worldview exposes the rot festering in the modern conservative movement.

This disturbing practice of cheering against Olympians from your own country is not a “both sides do it” thing. This is strictly the domain of right-wingers.

If Connor McDavid or Sidney Crosby (or any Canadian Olympic athlete) said they had “mixed feelings” about Canada, progressives and liberals would certainly be disappointed, but none would ever publicly hope for a Canadian Olympian to fail.

And there is no universe where Prime Minister Carney would call any Canadian Olympic athlete a “loser.” That kind of disgusting, childish name-calling is an ugly trait unique to the morally depraved and radiantly ignorant felon in the White House.

Hess isn’t alone in his feelings. Several other fellow American Olympians have courageously chosen to use their Olympic platform to speak their mind. They have fearlessly decided that the harsh blow back they know they will get, is worth it. Speaking truth to power never goes out of style, not even at the Olympics.

As someone commented on social media about Hess’ brave comments, “Olympic athletes bearing witness to their government’s moral failures exemplifies the highest purpose of free speech – not as mere self-expression, but as civic duty demanding the courage to speak truth when silence would be complicity.”