The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan aren’t even a day old, and MAGA’s self-appointed patriots have already flipped a lid over a few Team USA athletes who dared to speak their minds.
Freestyle skier Hunter Hess set off the powder keg by admitting he has “mixed emotions” about representing the United States while federal immigration agents — most notably Immigration and Customs Enforcement — are carrying out controversial and violent operations across the country. “Just because I wear the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.,” Hess said, an observation that sent right-wing commentators into meltdown.
Figure skater Amber Glenn added fuel to the fire, telling reporters she couldn’t just be silent on political issues. “Politics affects us all. It is something I will not just be quiet about,” she said, prompting a cascade of MAGA-aligned rage.
As reported by The Daily Beast, that rage was predictable and ugly. Conservative media figure Megyn Kelly sneered on social platforms, “Another turncoat to root against.” Alt-right conspiracy pusher Jack Posobiec told his millions of followers: “Easily solved. Get out.”
MAGA influencers openly declared they were now rooting against Team USA — a stunning twist of allegiance at an event traditionally seen as a unifier rather than a battleground for culture wars. Columnist Marc Thiessen griped that athletes talking politics would “ruin the Olympics,” while Trump-aligned boxer and influencer Jake Paul blasted Hess: “Wow pls shut the f— up. From all true Americans. If you don’t want to represent this country go live somewhere else.”
The online frenzy didn’t stop there. Self-described “ultra MAGA” accounts proclaimed they were rooting against the men’s ski team outright. “There’s nothing worse than a bunch of WOKE beta males like these snowflakes representing America overseas,” one wrote. Others insisted athletes with “mixed emotions” should be banned from the team, with one Rumble host announcing he’d “rather us lose with patriots, than win with traitors.”
Some MAGA voices even went so far as to tell Team USA athletes they weren’t “doing this country a favor” by competing — and to “take the uniform off.” That an international athletic competition could be framed as some sort of betrayal says as much about the angry MAGA base as anything the athletes actually *said.
Conservative commentators also found new targets in people like Gus Kenworthy, a skier who now competes for Great Britain and posted a profanity-scrawled joke in the snow on Instagram.
The spectacle on social media has echoes of the 2024 Summer Olympics, when MAGA figures erupted over a drag performance in the Paris opening ceremony — another moment where nationalism collided with cultural expression and ended in a vicious online rage cycle.
Welcome to the Winter Games, MAGA edition: where athletes are expected to perform miracles on snow and also keep their political opinions locked in a vault, or face the ire of a movement that seems to equate patriotism with blind allegiance to their dear leader.
