There's good money in saying exactly what the right wing of this country wants to hear. You can hear the checks hitting accounts every time writers like Bari Weiss or anchors like Tomi Lahren sell their own generational cohort down the river.
Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter Freedom has realized he can make himself a star by saying what conservatives want to hear about China, and it's landed him a speaker slot at CPAC.
The journeyman player has become a conservative icon for his criticism of China and LeBron James, two bogeymen of the Fox News primetime slate.
Ghouls like Tucker Carlson have used Kanter's stance on China's human rights record and his status as a naturalized American citizen to land punches on minority groups in the U.S. Whether they are fellow star athletes or people in the streets protesting over police brutality, the dominant mode of conservative media is to view anyone who speaks out about America's mistreatment of its people as "ungrateful," and Kanter is willing to play along.
“People should feel really blessed and lucky to be in America,” Freedom told Carlson recently in response to a loaded question about whether his fellow athletes were less grateful to be American. “They love to criticize it, but when you live in a country like Turkey or China or somewhere else, you will appreciate the freedoms you have here.”
Freedom exposes the lie that Republicans want athletes to "stick to sports." What they have always been saying is a much-less-nuanced "shut up" to anyone who goes against their fragile conception of the USA as a shining city on a hill. We hope Freedom enjoys the free trip to the City Beautiful to hang with some of the most hideous vampires in the nation.
CONFIRMED: @EnesFreedom pic.twitter.com/aapijOVmv7
— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) February 7, 2022
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