Tangle - The Olympics begin.

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

The 2022 Winter Olympics began in Beijing, China, last week with opening ceremonies on Friday. In early December, we covered Biden's announcement of a diplomatic boycott — meaning the U.S. won't be sending the president or any other official U.S. government delegation.You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the Olympics that are happening right now in Beijing, China, some of the commentary around them, and what to make of the whole ordeal.

As always, before we jump in, we'll start with some quick hits. First up, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leaders are drafting legislation that would ban members of Congress from trading stocks. Number two, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized the Republican National Committee for censuring Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Number three, Representative Troy Nels has accused the Capitol Police of running an undercover investigation in his office. The Capitol Police have denied the charge, saying they took a photo of his office when they noticed the door was ajar. Number four, the Justice Department says it seized more than $3.6 billion of Bitcoin that was stolen during a 2016 hack. Number five, New York Governor Kathy Hochul will announce an end to the state's indoor mask and proof of vaccination mandates for businesses. The Winter Olympics are officially underway over in Beijing tonight.

And while American athletes are there in full force, no U.S. government officials are in attendance as the U.S. joins several nations in a diplomatic boycott. Xi Jinping, the president of China, of course, knowledgeable about the allegations of genocide within his borders, made this stunning choice to have a member of the Uyghur minority population who is an Olympian be one of the torchbearers who lit the cauldron tonight. And the 2022 Winter Olympics are underway after the opening ceremony kicked off early this morning. 2,900 athletes from 90 different nations are set to go for the gold in Beijing, but diplomatic delegations from the U.S. and several other countries are boycotting the games over China's human rights abuses. The 2022 Winter Olympics began in Beijing, China last week, and the opening ceremonies were

held on Friday. In early December, we covered Biden's announcement of a diplomatic boycott, meaning the U.S. won't be sending the president or any other official U.S. government delegation to the Olympics. The move is designed as a protest against China's ongoing human rights abuses and is a notable snub given the Chinese government's hopes to use the Olympics to enhance its public standing. But the boycott by officials did not affect the ability of any U.S. athletes to participate in the games. Around the time of the U.S. boycott, the Women's Tennis Association also suspended all tournaments in China, citing the treatment of Peng Chui, a tennis player who had accused China's former vice premier of sexual

assault and was not seen publicly for weeks after making the accusation. She has since recanted her claims, though many question whether she was forced into that public stance. After the U.S. announced its boycott, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Denmark, and Estonia all followed suit. While 46% of Americans say they approve of the boycott, 22% say they disapprove, and another 45% say they have heard nothing at all about it. Since the Olympics began, viewership has been anemic, on track to be the lowest-rated winter Olympics in American television history. As the Olympics approached and no other action had been taken, commentary about what the U.S.

should do and how athletes should approach the Olympics has been widespread. While this hasn't been a particularly divisive issue here in the U.S., it's one Tangle has been covering since we first interviewed Minky Worden, the director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, about efforts to get the U.S. to boycott the Olympics. I don't see any reason to create tension where there isn't much, so below, we're just going to share an assortment of opinions about the game so far. First up, Jules Boykoff, a former Olympic and professional soccer player, said the world is sliding toward authoritarianism and so are the Olympics.

What a difference two decades makes, he wrote. With the 2022 Beijing Olympics underway, no one is making grand promises about the game's jump-starting democracy in China. Beyond a diplomatic boycott by the U.S. and some allies, and demands for a full boycott that didn't gain much traction, no major protests are expected, at least not within China itself. Of course, the IOC isn't alone in being unwilling to take on China. In the years between the two Beijing Olympics, China has become significantly more authoritarian, repressive, and powerful. Countries and corporations have financial incentives not to make too much noise.

But the difference between Beijing 2008 and Beijing 2022 says something else about the modern-day Olympics, he added. For decades, the Games have been a venue for progressive activism, both against the political practices of the host country and against the IOC. The IOC has long been critiqued as a cable of elites who have failed to address the cost overruns, environmental damage, forced eviction, and police militarization that frequently accompany the Olympics. Instead of responding to the calls for reform, the IOC has in recent years become less responsive, less democratic, and more opaque, making more decisions behind closed doors, closing ranks around unusually powerful leaders, fending off allegations that its members engaged in bribery and corruption, and, most recently, turning a blind eye to political repression.

Human rights activist Chen Guangcheng said the Communist Party is on a campaign to whitewash its image and said no democracy should participate in the games. Plastering over the ever-growing list of human rights abuses, including the takeover of Hong Kong, the internment of Muslims in Xinjiang, the disappearance of tennis star Peng Shui, the cover-up of COVID, the threats to democratic Taiwan, the party wields denial, obfuscation, and cash, he wrote. The latest campaign pushes the absurd claim that China enjoys democratic government at home while deriding as undemocratic the world's real democracies. The Chinese people have never had a free election. The occasional village elections

trotted out for the West to see are a farce, and the National People's Congress is made up entirely of the party's handpicked officials. The subject of democracy has been banned from kindergarten to university classrooms since 2013. The Chinese people live under a lockdown of information, but even Americans are caught in an information vacuum. Foreign journalists in China face intense pressure to speak carefully about the country, and U.S. media outlets often take the regime at its word. Alana Myers-Taylor, a U.S. Olympic bobsledder in this year's Games, rejected the many criticisms about the Games. Imagine what it feels like to be told that you shouldn't compete in an event for which you've trained for years,

or what it feels like to have your supporters' generosity attacked, or to wonder if anyone will be watching when you're competing, Myers said. I understand the concerns about human rights and free expression in China, but I'd offer that the best way that I can send a message about that is by competing in the Olympic Games. I'm a mother to a special needs child, a child whose very right to life could have been at risk if he had been born in other countries. To go to Beijing and compete as an American, a woman, and a person of color, and as a special needs parent,

says more than any boycott could. I understand people want us and our backers to speak out about the host city decision, but sponsors and athletes didn't choose Beijing. Neither of us play a role in who hosts the games. Neither of us are the right objects for anger on that subject. I understand that some feel sponsors have a special responsibility, but these critics miss what sponsors actually do for American athletes. For my family and many others, sponsor support isn't a bonus or a nice to have. It's a need to have. One example, in 2020, sponsor support enabled me to take time to have a child. If you're a competitive athlete, not competing means not earning prize money. There's no paid parental leave on the bobsled In the New York Times, Spencer Bocot Lindell asked if the U.S. could be doing more. Victor Cha, senior vice president and Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,

agrees that a boycott that extends to competitors makes no sense. At the same time, he believes the diplomatic boycott depoliticizes the Games by preventing government officials from airing their criticisms within China. Collectively, the top 13 corporate Olympic sponsors have contracts with the IOC that add up to more than $1 billion. Activists have pressured these companies to withdraw their support, but so far, none have done so, and only four, Omega, Intel, Airbnb, and Procter & Gamble, have responded to requests from the Times for comment. In the absence of more robust action from the Olympics' primary stakeholders, many viewers have been left

feeling conflicted about the question of their own complicity. In the National Review, Jim Garrity asked if we can watch the Olympics in good conscience. American athletes staying home won't free one Uyghur or one Hong Kong democracy activist or make a future invasion of Taiwan any less likely. And it's not an American athlete's fault that the International Olympic Committee chose Beijing, which just hosted the Summer Games in 2008, over any cities in non-authoritarian countries. And yet, there's that sinking feeling that if Americans act as if there's nothing unusual or troubling about these Winter Games, we will be acquiescing to a lie and accomplices in a great crime. Should we watch these games? If we refuse to watch, are we punishing American

athletes who are blameless? If we do watch, are we unintentionally consenting to genocide? Farid Zakaria said it's worth comparing this year's Olympics to 2008, the last time China hosted. Remember the 2008 Beijing Games? China was dazzling the world with its economic prowess and technological sophistication, determined to impress with its soft power. Praise filled the headlines in countries such as Australia, Britain, and the U.S. A perfect 10 in Beijing tonight opined the Sydney Morning Herald of the opening ceremonies. London's Evening Standard described the event as, quote, the beginning of China's new era of greatness, witnessed and implicitly approved by much of

the leadership of the planet, end quote. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. And indeed, there was George W. Bush, the first American president, to attend an Olympics in a foreign country, telling the press that the Beijing Games exceeded my expectations.

These same countries, the U.S., Britain, and Australia, have all announced the diplomatic boycott of the Games over human rights concerns, Zakaria said. No major Western head of state is attending. The star of the show will be China's ever-closer ally, Vladimir Putin. The event itself is taking place without the usual screaming crowds and Olympic cheers. Traveling to China is nearly impossible due to the pandemic, and the government is barring most ordinary people from attending, all of which means that the stadiums and other venues are essentially TV studios beaming out sports that are being played in front of near-empty arenas.

All right, that is it for some of the opinions today, which brings us to my take. Honestly, my position on this has changed a bit over the last few months. When I first interviewed Minky Warden and first wrote about these upcoming games, I was adamant that the U.S. should do more. An athlete boycott felt like a reasonable suggestion, even though I didn't outright support it. I was happy to see the diplomatic boycott, at the very least, because I didn't want to see Biden and many other state leaders chumming up with President Xi on the global stage. The opinion piece from Alana Myers-Taylor did move me, though. She made strong points about the commitment from the athletes and the importance of sponsors, noting that they don't just help the host countries, but they also make it possible

for Olympic athletes to compete and survive. As she wrote, the organization at the top of the blame pyramid is the International Olympic Committee, which chooses where to host the games and now has handed the public relations goldmine of the Olympics to China twice in 12 years. Given Taylor's argument, what I've been more keenly interested in is how U.S. athletes act, and so far that has left me a little bit wanting. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the eyebrow-raising step of discouraging athletes from protesting at the opening ceremonies, saying it wasn't worth the risk from a ruthless Chinese government. Quote, I would say to our athletes, you're there to compete, she said.

Do not risk incurring the anger of the Chinese government because they are ruthless, end quote. Officials apparently have warned athletes that they are subject to Chinese law when in Beijing, which means they could be in prison for months or years if they speak out about its crimes. The Biden administration, however, broke with Pelosi. All athletes have the right to freely express themselves, and that is the case in Beijing at the Olympics. It is the case anywhere. They will make those choices as individuals,

Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. It's the responsibility of China to live up to its own obligations to maintain a safe environment for all athletes at these games. The world will be watching, but we leave it up to individuals. We certainly support the right to peaceful protest.

This, to me, is a much better response. It is probably foolish to think a boycott by athletes would have done anything but punish the athletes. Taylor's argument about the need for sponsors to support the athletes also resonates, and if we're in agreement that a diplomatic boycott like the one the U.S. committed to is the bare minimum, despite doing little besides angering Chinese officials, it leaves the athletes who are there to stand up, or us, to use the power of our dollar. I certainly want them to stand up or us to use the power of our dollar. I certainly want them to stand up and I certainly want Americans to do their part in tuning out the

Olympics. But the risk is real for the athletes on the ground. I really don't know how China would react. Would they really punish or even imprison U.S. athletes for, say, speaking out about the Uyghurs on the podium with the whole world watching, I have a hard time imagining it. But the only way the protests would work and the athletes would be insulated is if it made a big enough wave that the whole world really was watching. I haven't sat down for a minute of the Olympics yet, and I'm a sports junkie. The TV ratings reflect the disinterest here in the States and globally, which is bad both for China and the sponsors, but also bad for any athletes who want to risk their hides on a protest. If you go for it and nobody notices except the Chinese government,

you're in big trouble. As I wrote in December, the best outcome in all of this would have been pulling out of the games from Beijing a year ago, but we didn't do that, so Biden did what he could with a bad hand, and the rest of us are left with the moral quandary of how to treat the games knowing everything we know. All right, that is it for my take. That brings us to our reader question. This one is from an anonymous reader in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They ask, I am a registered Republican. However, I'm becoming increasingly more concerned that the Trump followers are going to inadvertently usher in a fascist government. I'm seeing rising racist sentiments as well as book burnings and bannings across the country. Is this a legitimate concern or am I worried over nothing?

Frankly, I do think this is a little bit absurd. The invocation of fascism is one of those things that makes me exceedingly annoyed and frustrated. It's the kind of political language and sensationalism that makes me distrustful of the media and reminds me how historically illiterate some of our political commentators are or how willing they are to distort history to make a splashy point. To be clear, I don't blame you. I am also obviously deeply concerned about censorship and government bans on the left and the right. And there have been hundreds of headlines and shows and podcasts about how Trump is a fascist and fascism is coming. Even worse, there are the endless comparisons between Trump and Hitler. For starters, though, Republicans are the minority party in the House-Senate,

and they just lost the White House by 7 million votes. Trumpism was clearly rejected by a huge swath of America, and at this rate the only chance Democrats have to escape obliteration in the midterms or 2024 is if Trumpism emerges as their opponent once again. More to the point, though, is that Trump's worldview is the complete opposite of fascists from history like Hitler. Hitler and Trump both promised to restore the past greatness of their nations and both framed the world in terms of a chaotic anarchy, the idea of law and order being necessary to keep humans civilized. They both lied and spread propaganda.

But all of this is true of non-fascist world leaders. Hitler believed that total state control was the way to restore order. He believed self-interest was deleterious, and that individuals and society needed to be bonded by a common worldview and belief system and history, hence the need to exterminate inferior people like the Jews. The state's job was not to provide a thriving economy or quality of life and facilitate freedom, it was to help the German race dominate. Trump's worldview is quite literally the total opposite. Self-interest and individual liberty are how people thrive, both personally and as part of the larger state. Who is more

overtly self-interested than Trump? He is the model of that archetype and has been since long before he took office. He's the unabashed capitalist and businessman. The state's job, in Trump's eyes, is to allow the economy to prosper. That's Trumpism. This is why so many historians criticize the comparisons, at least the ones who haven't been swept up in a partisan anti-Trump fever. The central ideologies are totally different. In fact, I think the obsession over who is a fascist is actually dangerous because it both distracts us from what is really dangerous about Trumpism and leaves us asking for more state power and censorship to stop it, the very way actual fascism is created.

So yes, there are plenty of reasons to worry. Some fundamental things about Trumpism are a threat to liberal democracy. But I don't think those worries should have to do with a former president somehow ushering in fascism to the U.S. somehow ushering in fascism to the U.S. All right, that is it for your questions answered. Next up is a story that matters. The dam is breaking on COVID-19 mandates.

Yesterday, we wrote about how Americans were divided on the path forward with COVID-19, but politicians seem to be making up their minds. Leaders in blue states across the country are announcing an end to various measures, including indoor mask mandates and mask mandates at school. While COVID-19 deaths are still at their peak in this wave, infections are falling rapidly, and the growing body of evidence suggests vaccines and natural immunity combined will protect people from serious infections in the future. Restrictions in New York, New Jersey, Oregon, California, Connecticut, Delaware, and even Boston seem to be on their way out.

The New York Times has the story about this, and there is a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, next up is our numbers section. These are all tied to the Olympics. 2,874 is the number of athletes participating in the Olympics this year. 91 is the number of nations represented at the Olympics. 224 is the number of U.S. athletes at the Olympics, the most of any country. $4 billion is the estimated budget of the entire Winter Olympics. And one is the number of gold medals won by the U.S. so far.

All right, last but not least, our have a nice day section. European scientists say they have made a major breakthrough on their quest to develop nuclear fusion. That's the energy process that powers the stars. The UK-based JetLab says it has smashed its own world record for how much energy it can extract by squeezing together two forms of hydrogen. If nuclear fusion can be successfully recreated on Earth, it holds out the potential of virtually unlimited supplies of low-carbon, low-radiation energy, the BBC reports. Operating the power plants of the future based on fusion would produce no greenhouse gases and only very small amounts of short-lived radioactive waste. In other words, this is a

super big deal. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, we will be back with you tomorrow around this time. And if you want to give us some love between now and then, go check out that episode description. Click a link to become a monthly supporter or subscribe to our newsletter, Tangle, which is the only way we make money and get support from our readers. Thank you guys so much,

and we'll see you soon. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by edited by bailey saul sean brady ari weitzman and produced in conjunction with tangle's social media manager magdalena bakova who also helped create our logo the podcast is edited by trevor eichhorn and music for the podcast was produced by diet 75 for more from tangle subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. Thanks for watching! Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.