THE 2021 TOKYO OLYMPICS:

WHY SOME AMERICANS CHEERED AGAINST THEIR OWN ATHLETES

By David Hopkins

If there was ever a unique cultural phenomenon that occurred during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics it came with the reactions of many Americans toward the country’s athletes who competed on Team USA. For decades, Americans watching the Games at home and abroad collectively let their ardent patriotism and support run wild whether it was a Winter of Summer Olympiad, no matter where the Games were held. The Talk of the Town for two weeks running was wrapped up in enthusiastic banter about how well our Star-Spangled athletes were performing along with finger-pointing to the daily rising medal count that supported it. Americans glued to their TV sets were intransigently delighted and proud to display their boisterous support for the athletes that made up Team USA.

But that wasn’t the case for the Tokyo Olympics. Not by a longshot. Rather than resounding support, Americans tuned out the Games in record numbers. Many who once watched the Games with passion from start to finish joined in a huge nationwide boycott that saw TV ratings plunge to historic lows. NBC, which aired the Games, couldn’t sell its advertising spots. The suddenly not-so-proud Peacock Network couldn’t even GIVE the spots away.

Social media and many sportswriters around the country seemed flabbergasted that so many Americans were not only disinterested in the Olympics, they were actually rooting against Team USA in many cases, particularly the much-ballyhooed Women’s Soccer Team with its collection of in-your-face Kneelers led by a purple-headed antagonist by the name of Megan Rapinoe. When the USA women lost 1-0 to eventual Gold Medal Winner Canada in a Team Play match and eliminated them from any chance at Gold, the internet lit up with effusive congratulations to the Canadian women from celebrating Americans everywhere. Mainstream sports writers and social media darlings were absolutely flummoxed by the huge outpouring of support for our Northern Neighbors and conquerors of the famous favored Americans. How, they asked, could fellow Americans pull against this vaunted soccer team? These renown champions of the Pitch? Oh, they had their theories of course—- the predictable ones we shall address in a moment—– but those were far off the mark as being a product of typical delusional Liberal thinking.

I’m here now to shed some light on the confusion that has so many sportswriters and social media pundits shaking their heads in a tizzy.

It’s pretty simple really. Americans are sick and tired of pampered Woke athletes brazenly disrespecting our country before a World audience, particularly when the athletes have no true perspective about the reasons they act so………..ignominious. It is primarily due to the smarmy antics of an clueless America-hater who uses her platform as an international athlete to openly display contempt for a country while at the same time monetizing her celebrity with good old fashion American capitalism, namely, peddling sandwiches for Subway and some say modeling Victoria’s Secret garb, although I could not imagine someone so repulsive running around in a skimpy nightie.

Anyway, when a Woke disrespectful athlete like Megan Rapinoe publicly ridicules her home country while soldiers die for her freedom and while she lives large off its wide array of benefits, she calls every American a sucker. She dishonors men and women and children of all ages, all genders, all nationalities, all who work hard to make a decent life for themselves and their families. All who do not have the privilege to PLAY sports on a daily basis. Rapinoe and her equally-misguided soccer teammates do not seem to be able to grasp the simple concept of nationalistic pride nor do they understand who butters their Woke bread. They spend more time on their knees trying to make a lame stab at a social justice message than up on two feet stopping the opposing players from scoring goals that put them out of the Gold Medal Game.

The long and short of it is that Megan Rapinoe and other Team USA athletes of her ilk are despicable hypocritical human beings with absolutely no honor or no fealty for a country that provides them with near unlimited resources to pursue a lifestyle replete with benefits no other country on Earth can offer. There is no other way to put it—-they are a disgrace. To see the arrogant preening Rapinoe and her teammates return to the USA humbled and humiliated with no Gold Medal (they thought they were a shoo-in for), is something to wildly celebrate among men and women of the USA, those who understand there is far more virtue in honoring one’s country than the self-fulfilling gratification of a shiny medal. Maybe one day Rapinoe and her cloying acolytes will get it, although it doesn’t seem likely.

And let’s dispel a nasty little allegation being pushed mainly by Liberal writers from CNN and Yahoo Sports concerning those who cheered against Woke USA athletes at the Olympics. These journalists are claiming that we who celebrated the competitive shortcomings of Team USA women’s soccer are all from the ranks of the Republican/MAGA Clan. (Or “Klan” as they would have you believe) This, however, is a lie, and a big one. The truth is that plenty of Democrats joined in the denunciation of Team USA’s kneeling escapades and tuned out the Games just as much as did their Republican counterparts. Shocking as it is to these vagabond Liberals who feel they speak for all, there are still good Americans in both political parties who regard Patriotism as a virtue, who revel in it, and who chose to put Megan Rapinoe and other disrespectful athletes on notice that there is still unity afloat for our Flag and Anthem despite their efforts to push it out of existence. The loud nationwide denunciation of Rapinoe by Americans is testament to that.

Finally, we should note here that our own President, Joe Biden, made a public comment after the Olympics that Megan Rapinoe represents “the best of what America stands for”. Is that so, Joe? Seriously? I’m pretty sure that those American soldiers that you allowed to be slaughtered over in Afghanistan were standing when the terrorist bombs hit. Some Americans are still standing over there, still stranded, still in mortal fear as they desperately try to get out of that country. If this is not a perfect indication of how out of touch this bumbling incompetent President is then we, as a country, are truly in desperate trouble.

THE PATHETIC PURPLE AMERICAN TRAITOR

PURPLE HAZE

By David Hopkins

Thank goodness the 2021 (actually 2020) Tokyo Olympics finally came to a grinding halt a couple of weeks back because for all the universal sportsmanship and unity they were meant to convey, the Games, for many Americans, were stained by the classless tawdry displays of Team USA Women’s Soccer, particularly the most cunning and offensive member of that losing ragtag squad, Megan Rapinoe.

The purple-haired America-hating Rapinoe wasn’t sticking to her customary kneeling schtick and otherwise making a complete fool of her herself at the Olympics over social justice issues as she’d like everyone to believe. After all, what would a pampered middle-age White woman with lots of money know about the plight of Black America? No, Rapinoe tried hard to pull the purple wool over everyone’s eyes with a far more self-serving agenda that had nothing to do with altruism. In a nutshell, for Rapinoe and most of her disrespectful kneeling soccer teammates it was all about MONEY. Nothing but money. Rapinoe and the National Women’s Soccer Team is in the middle of a longstanding court battle over pay issues, namely, they want to be paid equal to or more than the Men’s national team. Clearly, there’s nothing wrong with that aspiration. We all want to be compensated for what we’re worth in the competitive job market, but Rapinoe and her comrades have resorted to a sneaky little game of deception in order to obtain that goal which unfairly places the American Government and its people in its crosshairs. Earlier, the Women’s National Team lost their case in Federal Court primarily due to a poorly-negotiated Collective Bargaining Agreement on behalf of the women and Rapinoe has not been exactly happy with that decision. In fact, her wrath has been stirred to the extent that she has chosen to blaspheme an entire country for the sleight she feels, including its government, its people, and its artifacts of patriotism. Megan Rapinoe is angry at everyone and everything for not getting the money she feels entitled to. She travels afar to the Land of the Rising Sun to vent her frustration and tell the whole World the USA is crap for not meeting her pay expectations. She is willing to throw ALL America under the proverbial bus over a unsatisfactory employment contract that neither the United States Government nor its citizenry had any part in.

Make no mistake. Megan Rapinoe wasn’t involved in some display of protest over societal injustice when she ground her pathetic knees into the soil at the Olympics. Rapinoe’s disgusting deplorable display was a ruse, a product of pure unadulterated selfishness, greed, and lack of class, a pampered pompous unpatriotic American who pouts and whines and shows the most unseemly side of the cultural landscape, this one in the field of athletics. Rapinoe was trying hard to convince us that her actions had some degree of legitimacy, some small dab of virtue, but thank goodness it didn’t work because Americans were too smart to fall for the sham.

Her shameful conduct is made even more egregious by the fact that most of our other Olympic athletes at the Tokyo Games showed unctuous respect and fealty for the country. So many tears of pure joy. So many Team USA athletes enthusiastically draped themselves in the Flag to celebrate victory. So many words of emotion that reflected their genuine loyalty and pride to be an American. Almost without exception, our Olympic athletes didn’t stoop or squat or take a knee when the National Anthem was played. They stood tall and erect as Old Glory was raised.

But not Megan Rapinoe.

And to think, Rapinoe has actually been REWARDED for her perfidy. Subway thought she would make a sensational spokesperson for its sandwiches and gave her a fat lucrative contract deal to pitch its grub on TV. She even gets to kick food out of a guy’s hands who chose not to eat a Subway sandwich, showing just what a true overbearing bully she is. Apparently, Subway is fine with this purple-headed carnival creature continuing to peddle its food on TV. As of the date of publishing, Rapinoe is still appearing in Subway commercials, still benefitting from her anti-American tomfoolery , which really isn’t surprising given Subway’s checkered history of picking product pitchmen.

Megan Rapinoe isn’t fooling anyone with these noxious displays of anti-American sentiment wrapped up in the guise of social justice. Rapinoe is no hero. No one to emulate. She’s as phoney as the purple dye that covers her pageboy locks. She exudes all the worst qualities of the greedy entitled American athlete with no loyalty or respect for the country which nurtured and funded her dreams. Applying the moniker of “traitor” would be quite fitting in my view.

Hopefully, we’ve seen the last of Megan Rapinoe as an athlete representing our great country.

WELCOME TO CULTURE CRAZE

Hello there!! Im delighted that you stumbled across this site. My name is David Hopkins and I’m the author and publisher of “Culture Craze”, a humble but dutiful new Blog that in the months ahead will explore all facets of the American culture, everything from music to sports to crime and politics, which is pretty close to being the same thing.

I started up this humble site after a few years publishing a Blog named “The Jukebox Hero” on the old now defunct Orble Network before it suddenly disappeared (literally overnight) sometime in 2015. The “Jukebox Hero” was a fairly widely read music and entertainment Blog and had plenty of subscribers but the dubious manner by which Orble vanished, leaving thousands of paid writers hanging with no way to retrieve their intellectual property, left a bad taste in my mouth, and it’s only now that I’ve felt comfortable enough to return to a formal writing platform……and, fortunately or unfortunately, this is it. Besides, there’s so much juicy stuff out there to cover today, so I couldn’t pass up the chance to get back into the swing of things.

I’m a Child of the 60s and have been eternally fascinated by the cultural aspects of an ever-changing World, especially in the USA which seems to be changing daily, and certainly not always for the better. I’ve worked as a Sports Editor for a couple of newspapers and covered a lot of music and music artists in my time, written copious movie reviews, and this Blog will devote lots of space to that. And politics? Oh my, yes! Politics indeed will flow here, sometimes like honey and sometimes like hot lava. I wrote for the Army’s “Stars And Stripes” for awhile as a younger man and covered lots of men and women who specialize in the art of politics so I think I might have some good insights in that area, too. In short, here at “Culture Craze” I hope to be both informative and entertaining, probably more than a wee bit controversial, and I invite you to stop by when you can. Your thoughts and comments will always be welcome, whether you see things my way or not.

Welcome to “Culture Craze”.