Thought Exercise re: LA Olympics—saving grace for US democracy or a weak point?

[Anonymous]

Is there a point at which other countries will boycott the LA Olympics in response to Trump’s disrespectful treatment and restrictions on the press? Will that prevent the government from abandoning democracy? I was looking for some hope that the patriotism and glamour of hosting the Olympics might be a more powerful check on Trump becoming more autocratic, but perhaps any international protest would be sadly spun/interpreted as “deserved” economic punishment for liberal Angelenos (even though LA and SoCal has many Rs, too).

[Anonymous]

If Trump isn't impeached or heart attacked, hope every nation and every athlete boycotts.

The Olympics devastate local economies.
But that part is probably unavoidable by now.

[Anonymous]

Resist the American Olympics.

[Anonymous]

It’s a very long time away. World Cup should be interesting, though.

[Anonymous]

Look up when the Nazis hosted the Olympics

[Anonymous]

It will either be like the 1936 summer olympics or else the 1980 summer olympics.

[Anonymous]

I'm more interested in how our supposed joint world cup with Mexico and Canada will work out.... or not.

[Anonymous]

Nothing will happen. Europe is about to bend the knee to Trump. The UK is trying to assert itself as a world leader with its back up singers Canada and France. PM Starmer pledged to increase its military spending before his last meeting with Trump although it had already met its target for NATO. NATO Sec Gen Rutte wants to increase contributions to 3% of GDP and wealthy countries like Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, and Portugal are well below quotas

Canada contributed a little over 1% of its GDP
and France a little more than 2%.

Trump is threatening not to defend these countries in case if war and Rutte is taking him seriously. He is crazy enough to also not give visas to athletes from those counties to participate in the Olympics.

[Anonymous]

Trump will use it as an excuse to scream at California and the mayor and Governor every step of the way. He has it scheduled on his social media derangement calendar for sure. It will be a colossal shot show of drama, poor athletes.

[Anonymous]

Whatever happens, I hope McDonalds once again runs a promotion with pre-printed scratch-off cards like they did in 1984.

When the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block countries boycotted the U.S. Olympics, Team USA cleaned up big time and as a kid I remember my family going out to McDonalds cashing in our free food prizes every other night (they'd give you new scratch-off tickets with your Happy Meals even when you redeemed your winning tickets for free meals).

If countries boycott the coming U.S. Olympics, expect a load of gold medals for Team USA!

Good times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whatever happens, I hope McDonalds once again runs a promotion with pre-printed scratch-off cards like they did in 1984.

When the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block countries boycotted the U.S. Olympics, Team USA cleaned up big time and as a kid I remember my family going out to McDonalds cashing in our free food prizes every other night (they'd give you new scratch-off tickets with your Happy Meals even when you redeemed your winning tickets for free meals).



If countries boycott the coming U.S. Olympics, expect a load of gold medals for Team USA!

Good times.

Great, team USA can join the East German swimmers as having their medal listed with an asterisk after their name.

Plus, China doesn't boycott, I bet. They come determined to show superiority in an area that Americans can appreciate: sport.

And I'm not a China supporter at all, just pragmatic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whatever happens, I hope McDonalds once again runs a promotion with pre-printed scratch-off cards like they did in 1984.

When the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block countries boycotted the U.S. Olympics, Team USA cleaned up big time and as a kid I remember my family going out to McDonalds cashing in our free food prizes every other night (they'd give you new scratch-off tickets with your Happy Meals even when you redeemed your winning tickets for free meals).

If countries boycott the coming U.S. Olympics, expect a load of gold medals for Team USA!

Good times.

Ha, I'd forgotten about this. So fun, thanks for the reminder!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Trump isn't impeached or heart attacked, hope every nation and every athlete boycotts.

The Olympics devastate local economies.
But that part is probably unavoidable by now.

Athletes will still participate. They spend years training and to just give that up for a moron would seem silly.

[Anonymous]

Let's hope the LA Olympics stick around, otherwise it will be Trump Jr's 'Enhance' Olympic games
https://apnews.com/article/trump-olympics-steroids-enhanced-games-2c8b559475436984a0e489b457ad7d6b

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]Is there a point at which other countries will boycott the LA Olympics in response to Trump’s disrespectful treatment and restrictions on the press? Will that prevent the government from abandoning democracy? I was looking for some hope that the patriotism and glamour of hosting the Olympics might be a more powerful check on Trump becoming more autocratic, but perhaps any international protest would be sadly spun/interpreted as “deserved” economic punishment for liberal Angelenos (even though LA and SoCal has many Rs, too).[/quote]

The best Olympic opening ceremony I ever saw was 1984 LA summer Olympics. Considering the political climate in the US, I hope the IOC will move the 2028 games to another country and as long as racism, sexism is legal in the US no future games can be held in the United States. It needs to be done now so I'm there countries can make their bids.

If they are held in LA then I hope there will be world wide botcott.