The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan were supposed to be a celebration of athletic excellence, global unity, and the kind of wholesome international camaraderie that makes even the most cynical among us tear up during the opening ceremony. Instead, Team USA walked in looking less like proud ambassadors of a global superpower and more like kids dropped off at school by parents who were screaming at each other in the car the whole ride over. You can practically see the emotional whiplash in their posture… the stiff smiles, the tight jaws, the “please don’t ask me about America” energy radiating off them like heat from a busted transformer. In a moment where they should have been basking in the applause, they were instead listening to boos intended for the faces on the Jumbotron - Hillbilly Vanilli and his wife Usha. Of course, the international press is asking anyway, because how could they not. The U.S. has been the world’s favorite spectator sport for years now, except instead of touchdowns and home runs it’s constitutional crises, political tantrums, and a president calling Olympic athletes “losers” from the comfort of a golf cart he uses to travel distances toddlers cover with a couple of scootches and a lunge.
Mikaela Shiffrin tried to keep it classy, because she’s Mikaela Shiffrin and she’s built like that. She said it’s “hard to represent a country that’s… like that right now,” and the ellipsis did more heavy lifting than half the U.S. Congress. She didn’t have to explain what “that” meant. The whole world has eyes. The whole world has internet. The whole world has watched America spiral into a live-action cautionary tale. And right on cue, Trump responded by calling her “ungrateful” and a “loser,” which is a fascinating choice of insult coming from a man who once needed a golf cart to get through a G7 summit because walking 700 yards was apparently too much cardio for him. The man treats a 10-foot stroll like it’s the Iditarod, but sure, let’s call the most decorated skier in history a loser.
Chloe Kim didn’t bother with the diplomatic veneer. She said she’s here to compete, not to “pretend everything’s fine,” which is the kind of honesty you get from someone who has no interest in gaslighting herself or anyone else. And Trump, in his usual style, called her a disgrace. This from a man whose idea of athletic achievement is managing to stand upright for the duration of a rally without leaning on a podium like it’s a life raft. The cognitive dissonance is so loud it could drown out the opening ceremony orchestra.
Nathan Chen, who can land quads with the precision of a NASA engineer, said he’s proud of his teammates but “the country… that’s complicated.” And of course Trump called him “weak,” which is objectively hilarious coming from someone who once needed two hands to drink water. The man moves like a Roomba with a dying battery, but he’s out here critiquing the physical and mental fortitude of Olympic champions. Unfugginbelievable doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Even Shaun White, who has spent his entire adult life launching himself off cliffs of ice for fun, said he’s “worried about what they’re going home to.” And Trump, predictably, called him washed up. This from a guy whose athletic peak was probably that one time he didn’t fall off a Segway. The projection is Olympic-level, truly.
And the world is watching all of this unfold in real time. Reporters from Europe, Asia, South America… they’re all asking the same question with the same careful tone people use when asking a friend if they’re “really okay” after a messy breakup. How does it feel to represent the United States right now? And the athletes keep giving the same answer in different dialects of diplomatic panic: proud of the team, proud of the sport, proud of the communities - but the country itself? That’s where the sentence trails off. That’s where the eyes shift. That’s where the truth leaks through the cracks.
But here’s the part that makes this whole thing so rich, so layered, so perfectly Unfugginbelievable: they’re still competing. They’re still showing up. They’re still doing the work. They’re still embodying the version of America that actually deserves to be on the world stage — the one built on discipline, teamwork, grit, and not screaming conspiracy theories at strangers in grocery stores. They’re representing the America that still exists beneath the chaos, the one Trump keeps trying to bulldoze with his golf cart of doom.
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