It’s Friday, February 27, 2026.

Normal people agree: It’s good to be an American.

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Alas, everyone can’t be normal.

MEDALS OF DISHONOR

America desperately needed a unifying cultural moment, an excuse to indulge in patriotic joy. We finally got one when the USA men’s hockey team beat Canada to win an Olympic gold medal for the first time since the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980. About 26 million Americans saw Jack Hughes score the game-winning goal in overtime, a massive number by present-day standards. That’s roughly half the viewing audience for the Friends finale in 2004—before the smartphones and social media, when people still watched television, talked to their neighbors, and had actual friends, long before the show’s creator was forced to apologize for the lack of diversity and donate $4 million to her alma mater’s African studies department.

We needed this, and we couldn’t have it because the most obnoxious people on the planet—journalists and other overeducated liberal psychopaths obsessed with politics—insisted on ruining it. The men’s hockey team was instantly condemned by shrieking lunatics for pausing their victory celebration to take a call from President Donald Trump and accepting his invitation to the White House. And as far as we can tell, the miserable dorks were also mad that the players—most of them in their twenties and several beers deep—did not immediately hiss, blow whistles, bang saucepans, or kneel in protest when Trump joked about being impeached if he didn’t invite the women’s team, which also won gold. They were subsequently condemned for supporting “the troops” and saying they’re “proud to be an American.”

It wasn’t just random online freaks. Journalists at “reputable” publications suffered public meltdowns raising serious questions about their sanity. The New York Times. The Atlantic. USA Today, for crying out loud. “I choose to believe that many of [the male players] are embarrassed,” wrote Chuck Todd, former host of Meet the Press on NBC. So-called sports reporters—who spent the last few weeks badgering U.S. athletes to apologize for representing their country—scolded the Olympic champions for having “utterly failed to meet the cultural moment.” A hockey reporter Ian Kennedy (He/Him) said he was still waiting for the male players to “apologize for laughing.” Apologize. For laughing.

Someone is failing utterly in this moment, but it’s not Team USA. The journos doth project too much. It has never occurred to them that they might be the villains in this story.
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