Eighteen-year-old San Francisco native Eileen Gu has become an overnight sensation after her recent gold medal victory in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games in the big air skiing competition. Gu was born to an American father and a Chinese mother, is bilingual, and has a career as a fashion model outside of her successful athletic pursuits.
In an ideal world, Gu would be seen as the embodiment of the American dream and fill the hearts of every patriot with pride as she ascended the medal podium. Unfortunately, Americans will get no such opportunity. Gu has decided to represent geopolitical rival China in this year’s games. Gu has said she feels “just as American as I am Chinese ” but chose China over America on the world stage.
Gu is not alone. Many American-born athletes, some with no ethnic Chinese background, have chosen to represent China in this year’s games. Almost all on China’s 2022 men’s hockey team were born or raised in North America. Further, many of these athletes will use a Chinese name when competing for the foreign power. American Jake Chelios will go by “Jieke Kailiaosi” when playing for Team China.
America’s best are choosing to disavow the land of their birth, the names of their fathers, and the culture of their community to give glory to China. Perhaps an exodus like this would shock more Americans if it was out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, most Americans are all too familiar with our culture’s attacks on our national identity and on each other.
One need look no further than American corporate media to feel the hate radiate off the screen. This week, Viacom-owned streaming service Showtime announced a new show called “Everything’s Gonna Be All White.” The first line of the trailer says, “I think what annoys me most about white people is when they pretend like they’re the victim,” followed by mock tears.
Each holiday or day of celebration, the media is happy to supply an endless buffet of “thing you like is bad, actually” think pieces to shove down your throat. And when creators do occasionally emerge with the ability to unite and create something that many people enjoy, they are forced to operate within an ever-shrinking window of acceptable ideas and destroyed if they soar too close to the sun.
There are many ways to understand this phenomenon, but on a basic level, Americans are attacking their neighbors’ heroes, traditions, and races. It is not difficult to imagine how this constant self-mutilation will bleed a nation out of confidence, vitality, and spirit. No one should be surprised when just 28 percent of Americans think America is on the right track.
Self-deprecation has become an American value. Is it then any wonder that athletes are not in a hurry to represent a nation that hates itself and those who call it home?
Whatever can be said about China, it does not despise the thought of its own existence. It will not apologize for expanding its influence through the Belt and Road initiative, dominating manufacturing, or openly threatening to take Taiwan. The Chinese regime and its supporters may know their country is not perfect, but it is their country. They believe it is their destiny to control and they will not listen to complaints from their enemies.
Americans have mostly tuned out the 2022 Olympics to this point, handing NBC some of its worst ratings in Olympics coverage ever. Many pundits blame American viewers’ anger about the Uyghur genocide for low interest. While there is some truth in this claim, it misses the deeper disease finally showing its symptoms in America.
Broken by the constant harassment by entrenched media, political, academic, and social classes, Americans are hesitant to cheer for those who claim to represent them because many who make the same claim have broken their trust. Americans cannot be rallied around beating China because they cannot be rallied. Passion for country, countrymen, or creed can no longer animate the American heart.
This system cannot hold if America hopes to survive. A humiliated and downtrodden nation is not worthy of preservation or investment. Despondent citizens will refuse to delay gratification and attempt to get as much meat from the dying beast before it decays completely.
They will be unwilling to raise families, volunteer, and participate in community activities like church attendance. They will instead turn to quick, easy diversions like porn and drug use. Solutions are not plentiful or easy, and I do not envy cultural or political leaders who hope to solve these problems, but ignoring them only hastens the dissolution of our nation.
A few unpatriotic athletes may not destroy our nation, but a complete lack of national culture and purpose will. Americans must suffocate the subversive elements of our society of money, power, and attention. It is time to kick the dividers of America from the podium and replace them with those honored to represent their nation.
