Deadspin columnist Drew Magary on Tuesday went on a long rant about alt-right demands that sports media and athletes stick to sports. Such fans are cowards who support a racist president, oppose anyone with different political views and put the American flag in their Twitter handles, Magary writes in the post titled, "You're not sticking to sports when you're sticking to sports".
"Sports fans of a certain ilk have been loudly bitching for a firewall between sports and politics for years and years now," Magary complains. “'Stick to sports' such a tired gripe that even joking about it is tired now. It’s a complaint that is always made by the exact same type of sports fan, be they core or casual, with the exact same type of politics… ."
What type of fan and what politics?
The type of fans who "cannot abide even the mildest of exposure to other political ideas—even just other people—whose very existence you resent. You are siding with leaders who prefer their transgressions remain discreet and you are indulging in an easy sop; a way to butter up alt-right mouthbreathers by promising, often insincerely, to keep politics to a minimum, in particular politics that make them uncomfortable. It is an obvious way of demonstrating your conflicting political ideology by being like CAN’T WE ALL JUST ENJOY SOME GOLF?"
They're the type of fans who don't want to delve into President Trump's racism because they would "rather ignore all the bad shit because they tacitly approve of it."
These are "MAGA toads" who endlessly demand that their precious sports and the people within those sports "be castrated of anything resembling progressive attitudes, lest their enjoyment of a fucking Steelers game be slightly diminished. In the PGA, NFL owners, and network heads, they’ve found perfect corporate panderers to take those complaints at face value, to craft those grievances into a formal mandate, and then to hold that bullshit mandate up as the proven solution to their profit woes, even if it isn’t. It’s like Mitt Romney is commissioner of everything."
Stick-to-sports fans are liars because they cheer for staged military family reunions at sports events and boo NFL players who kneel for the national anthem. Those actions by the fans, as well as the playing of the national anthem, are all political acts, Magary claims.
Sports teams are also hypocrites who show no interest in sticking to sports when they have military flyovers. When they campaign for a new stadium bill and pledge that such a project could “clean up the toxic waste and be environmental stewards.” When "they wanna stick with the nickname Redskins ... ."
Magary's post just keeps dripping with anger and politics. He says the big boys — ESPN, the PGA, NFL, MLB —are selectively sticking to sports and stating that they are not political organizations mixing in political activism when its suits them, such as Supreme Court justice endorsements and presidential fundraisers, for example. This is "an age of mass cowardice" and it’s not surprising that the PGA — "that famed bastion of sporting tolerance" — would hold a major tournament at a Trump-owned golf course.
It's also "sports story" to wonder about how "an openly racist President affects athletes, especially those of color and those who may have come here from elsewhere. That’s a sports story, one that a sports industry eager to tie sports to everything else would seemingly be eager to lap up. ..."
Sports venues should includestories about a president "screaming GO BACK TO AFRICA at citizen lawmakers and when lawmen are forcibly, GLEEFULLY ripping children away from their parents, and when Trump’s spokesghoul is coyly asking people to identify their race before her ... ."
Magary writes this "is when the political stops being political and becomes a human crisis, one that should be denounced from every rooftop and one that spurs conversations that easily seep into every aspect of American living, including the field of play."
