Sophie Cunningham is a woman the WNBA, sports journalists—largely to the left of Bernie Sanders—and Democrats everywhere love to hate, as much as they hate Caitlin Clark. And why not?
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She’s young, beautiful, unashamedly enjoying life, talented, and speaks her mind intelligently without apologizing for speaking the truth and common sense. She’s a talented basketball player who knows how to troll leftists, and worst of all, she defends Caitlin Clark, another young woman of equal virtue who Leftists also love to hate.
A significant part of Sophie-hatred comes from her entirely unremarkable comment that men should not play women’s sports, and her subsequent refusal to prostrate herself before the LGBTQ+ gods who populate the WNBA and the dark recesses of Democrats’ minds. Tennis great Martina Navratilova agrees:
Graphic: X Post
She’s talking about the WNBA’s refusal to definitively say men can’t play in the league. Former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White have pronounced themselves trans women and declared for the WNBA draft to force the WNBA to put up or shut up. This is complicated by the fact that the hostile, black lesbians that populate the league hate Clark and Cunningham for their beauty, ability, popularity, and because they’re straight.
Also complicating things is this:
The phrase “80-20 issue” is thrown out quite a bit in spaces such as these. But Tuesday, a 95-5 issue seems to have emerged.
The 95% in this case? The people on the internet bashing a piece from The Athletic that attacked WNBA guard Sophie Cunningham.
Columnist Candace Buckner argued that the soon-to-be free agent was a “combustible” figure whose “turbulent” opinions were a distraction to the Indiana Fever. Never mind that Cunningham’s most publicized stance — that biological males shouldn’t compete in female sports — is shared by the vast majority of the country.
Buckner’s conclusion? That the Fever must part ways with Sophie so that they “can go back to being a basketball team.” This sparked the public to break out their drivers.
It appears that the public, whose interest in and patronage of the WNBA is almost entirely due to Clark, and to a lesser degree, Cunningham, have finally had enough of the sports media, and the WNBA, which generally refuses to publicize two of the primary reasons for its recent success and the greatly increased wages of its players.
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This is hard to deny. The “circus” Buckner says surrounds Cunningham wouldn’t exist if the WNBA could simply define what a woman is. Doing so would have kept former NBA players such as Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White from declaring their intent to enter the WNBA Draft. But the W doesn’t want to have that discussion. Its leaders are too afraid of the internal blowback. They opt for the more widespread external blowback instead.
Stephen L. Miller slammed a dunk on the media’s hypocrisy:
Graphic: X Post
Forget that Kaepernick made a conscious decision to enter the political fray whereas Sophie simply answered a question about trans athletes in an ESPN interview. The problem for media pundits isn’t that Cunningham has “big opinions,” as Buckner said — it’s that she has the wrong opinions.
And of course, the race card has been played against Clark and Cunningham, who, a statuesque blonde, is particularly galling to black lesbian players, some of whom wear blonde hair—cultural appropriation?–and their supporters and enablers:
But the disdain players and critics have for Sophie is often projected onto her fans as well. There seems to be this idea that Fever supporters are these backward hillbillies filled with hate because they back players embraced in conservative circles. So, you’ll get players such as Angel Reese claiming that they heard racist comments from attendees in Indiana, or Brittney Griner saying that the league’s “new fans” shouted racial slurs at her.
Except, there hasn’t been an ounce of evidence that any of this “hate” is taking place in real time. Which led to this rather on-the-nose post from the X account Veritas Explorer, which wrote: “The real story was the anti-Fever, racist media campaign led by Jussie Smollett.”
Ultimately, it likely comes down to one ugly thing: jealousy, which all too often makes people willing to cut off their noses to spite their face. Clark and Cunningham have made the WNBA, if not solvent, at least far more profitable and respectable, something all the players, coaches and officials before them have been unable to do, and that can’t be tolerated.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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