From: tsm@fastmail.ca   
      
   Fragile U.S. psyche faces trial by sport in Milan
  	  
  CATHAL   
   KELLY
Milan
Published 8 hours ago
Updated 8 hours ago
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   â€©â€©â€©â€©Â  	  

In the   
   continuum of human stupidity, there are few more extreme contemporary   
   examples than boxer/influencer Jake Paul. Stupid is his business, and   
   business is good.   
   â€©Paul is here at the Olympics following around his crush, American   
   vice-president J.D. Vance. The pair attended Saturday’s U.S. women’s hockey   
   game together. 
Paul is also acting as volunteer komissar, policing the   
   political affiliations of his countrymen.
During a presser, American   
   freestyle skier Hunter Hess talked about the vibe back home. 
“It brings up   
   mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now,â€� Hess said. “Just because I   
   wear the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the   
   country.â€�
When said in Hess’s Jeff Spicoli drawl, you’d have to be   
   trying   
   to be very offended by that. Paul was very offended. 
“From all true   
   Americans,â€� he tweeted at Hess. “If you don’t want to represent this   
   country go live somewhere else.â€�
Cathal Kelly: Something funny happened   
   when Canada played Switzerland: it was an actual competition
Obviously,   
   someone who gets hit in the head for a living shouldn’t be taken too   
   seriously. Then Paul went on a date with the second-most powerful person in   
   America. So maybe that’s not obvious anymore. 


America’s been   
   coming   
   apart in a broken-family sort of way for a while. The rest of us are their   
   unlucky neighbours, lying awake at night listening to them fight. 
This is   
   different though. Shorn of home-field advantage in Milan, forced together   
   with all the friends they just ghosted, you can really see the cracks.   
   â€©From Vance being booed at the opening ceremony, to NBC playing state TV   
   and erasing it, to American athletes being pressed hard on how it feels to   
   play for a country no one likes any more, what strikes you isn’t that it’s   
   happening. Chinese and Russian athletes are used to provocative political   
   questions at big international events.
The difference is that the Chinese   
   and the Russians have muscular responses at hand. Like them or not, they   
   know where they stand. The Americans have no clue how to talk to strangers,   
   because they only discuss serious matters with like-minded Americans and   
   about America, if at all. That there is a world out there with its own take   
   on things befuddles them (i.e. “go live somewhere elseâ€�).


When   
   skiing   
   star Mikaela Shiffrin was asked about the America problem, she started,   
   stopped and said, “I can read something I had written, if you guys don’t   
   mind.â€� Then she rattled through what sounded a lot like a poem she found on   
   Instagram about ‘peace’. 
This is America’s new crisis of confidence,   
   and   
   it has nothing to do with being beset by the world’s problems, as happened   
   in the 70s. It’s realizing in real time at the Olympics that everyone else   
   thinks they are the world’s problem. You won’t find that on NBC either.   
   â€©There’s only so many patriotic montages you can hide that behind. The   
   Olympics aren’t a sports tournament. They are a biannual reminder of how   
   much you matter in the world. America’s always been the coolest kid in the   
   cafeteria, win or lose. You know that because they are the constant topic   
   of village gossip. They still are, but no longer in a good way. 
Cathal   
   Kelly: Canadian to the core, Sidney Crosby’s legacy is already   
   untouchable
Because of that, the sports end of the Olympics suddenly   
   matters a lot. That the American team will win a bunch of medals is a   
   given, but will they produce great moments? Will they come out of the Games   
   projecting strength, rather than the confusion they’re giving off right   
   now?


So far, so not good. Their great story of resilience was meant to   
   be   
   41-year-old Lindsey Vonn proving that no one can keep American can-do’ism   
   down. That lasted one turn into Sunday’s downhill final. 
After Vonn’s   
   horror crash, cameras panned through the audience to catch all the   
   Americans – who still insist on dressing for international travel like   
   George Washington holding a sign out in front of the Valu-Mart – looking   
   stunned. 
Then they focused in on the eventual winner, Breezy Johnson, who   
   is also American, sitting on the throne reserved for the person in top   
   spot. 
Johnson had an excruciated look on her face – am I allowed to be   
   happy right now? Should I be sad? – that captured the current   
   American-in-the-world vibe. 


This pastiche went on forever. Vonn on a   
   stretcher – cut to Johnson squirming – cut to Vonn being strapped   
   underneath a helicopter – cut to Johnson glazing over. 
The person   
   directing the international broadcast was doing their best Sergei   
   Eisenstein – saying with images what cannot be said with words. 
Everywhere   
   else in the world, America is always on top. You could stand any foreign   
   leader beside any deputy underwhatever of the U.S. State Department, and   
   you know who’s actually to the fore. Not here. 
At the Olympics, America is   
   one among equals. When the bad guys were the other guys, that was a buddy   
   story. Now it’s turning into a karmic beatdown. Everyone else wants to see   
   them fail, and they know it. 
If that means their nice, young athletes have   
   to lose, well, too bad. They’ve never been worried about our nice, young   
   athletes, or anyone else. 
Milan is the beginning of America’s trial by   
   sport. Five months from now, they host the World Cup. Their president will   
   actually be “atâ€� that tournament, every day for 56 days. I’m sure it’s   
   going to go great. 


Two and a half years from now, America hosts the   
   next   
   Olympics, in L.A., just as the Donald Trump era is ending. 
Based on how   
   things are going, could you see a world in which other countries decide to   
   take a pass on that Games? Not a boycott, necessarily. More a pause that   
   refreshes. See you again at French Alps 2030. Of all possible insults, none   
   would hurt or say more. 
There is also a world in which getting low-key   
   shamed here and elsewhere convinces just enough Americans to change course,   
   and that by 2028, things are starting to head in a better direction. But I   
   doubt it.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)