Media’s Shameful Double Standard: Fawning Over China’s Athletes While Lecturing American Patriots

The contrast couldn’t be more stark—or more disgraceful. While American hockey heroes bled for their country on Olympic ice, the nation’s so-called paper of record reserved its most effusive praise for an athlete who turned her back on the Stars and Stripes to compete for Communist China.

The New York Times and The Athletic have exposed their true colors with breathtaking clarity. Their coverage of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics reveals everything Americans need to know about the mainstream media’s warped priorities and disturbing affinity for authoritarian regimes.

The Media’s Chosen Darling

Eileen Gu, born and raised in San Francisco, made the calculated decision to abandon her American citizenship and represent the Chinese Communist Party on the world’s biggest athletic stage. The Athletic’s response? Glowing adulation that reads like state propaganda.

The outlet described Gu as a “scientist, politician, skier, model, and student”—a Renaissance woman whose abilities “dazzle” like those of a “magician.” This fawning coverage could have been written by the CCP’s publicity department itself.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Men’s Hockey team—actual American patriots who fought their way to gold medal glory—received a markedly different treatment from these same journalists.

Patriots Get Lectures, Not Celebration

After the American hockey team’s stunning gold medal victory, The Athletic couldn’t simply celebrate these warriors who represented their nation with honor and grit. Instead, the outlet pivoted to a condescending warning: sure, it’s “nice to be feted as a winner,” but athletes must understand that celebrations can be “easily repurposed into political capital.”

Translation: Don’t get too comfortable wrapping yourself in the American flag, boys.

The disparity is astounding. A turncoat receives reverent praise for her “cosmopolitan” sophistication. True American athletes get a lecture about the dangers of patriotic celebration.

This Is What Treason Adjacent Looks Like

National Review senior editor Charles C. W. Cooke didn’t pull punches in his assessment, correctly identifying Gu’s decision as “adjacent to treason.”

Cooke’s historical comparison is devastating in its accuracy: imagine if an American athlete had defected to the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War to compete in the 1970s Olympics. The “grotesque” nature of such a betrayal would have been universally recognized.

“She chose to represent a communist dictatorship over the United States,” Cooke stated plainly. “That is the wrong call.”

It’s really that simple. No amount of media spin can disguise the fundamental betrayal.

Two Visions of America

National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry crystallized the deeper issue at stake. He contrasted the “bloody-mouthed” hockey players—men like star Jack Hughes who left everything on the ice—with Gu’s carefully manufactured, brand-managed persona.

The hockey team played for something bigger than themselves. They competed for their country and honored the memory of their late teammate Johnny Gaudreau. Their loyalty was unconditional and unambiguous.

Gu, conversely, embodies what Lowry termed the “cosmopolitan ideal”—an identity that floats conveniently above something as quaint as national loyalty, adjusting allegiances based on personal advantage.

“Is loyalty to country a matter of choice, or an unalterable commitment?” Lowry asked. The question cuts to the heart of American identity itself.

There are those who feel fundamental gratitude toward the nation that gave them opportunity and freedom. Then there are those who maintain a “critical distance,” viewing America as merely one option among many—and often an inferior one at that.

The Kowtowing Continues

This Olympic coverage represents just the latest example of American elites prostrating themselves before Beijing. Bill Maher has repeatedly called out this pattern, condemning celebrities and athletes—from LeBron James to John Cena—for their shameless “kowtowing” to China.

The hypocrisy is staggering. These same public figures who lecture Americans endlessly about social justice fall mysteriously silent about China’s authoritarian surveillance state. They ignore the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs. They excuse concentration camps and totalitarian oppression—all to protect their lucrative Chinese market access and sponsorship deals.

Money talks. Principles, apparently, are negotiable.

The Elite’s Contempt for Patriotism

What the Times’ Olympic coverage truly reveals is the widening chasm between America’s coastal elites and the rest of the country.

To the media class, national loyalty is a “crude” relic of an unsophisticated past. Patriotism is provincial. The American flag is an embarrassment.

“World citizenship”—particularly when it comes with CCP funding and access to Chinese markets—represents the pinnacle of modern virtue in their eyes.

This is the same crowd that views Middle America with undisguised contempt. The same journalists who consider traditional American values backward and problematic. The same elites who believe themselves morally superior to the ordinary citizens who still love their country without reservation or apology.

America Still Believes

The good news is that most Americans see through this charade.

They watched those hockey players battle for every inch of ice. They saw young men honor their country and their fallen teammate with courage and sacrifice. They recognized authentic patriotism when they saw it.

And they also see Eileen Gu for exactly what she is—an opportunist who traded American citizenship for Chinese sponsorship money and media praise from outlets that despise American exceptionalism.

The Legacy of These Games

As the 2026 Olympics fade into memory, the medals themselves will matter less than what this moment revealed about our fractured nation.

On one side stand Americans who still believe in the red, white, and blue. People who understand that citizenship carries obligations, not just opportunities. Citizens who recognize that the freedoms they enjoy come with a debt of gratitude and loyalty.

On the other side stand the elites—media figures, celebrities, and corporate executives who view America as just another market, just another platform for personal advancement. For them, allegiance is transactional. Loyalty is conditional. And principle is subordinate to profit.

The Times’ disgraceful Olympic coverage didn’t create this divide. But it certainly illuminated it with unmistakable clarity.

The question now is which vision of America will prevail—the patriotic one, or the cosmopolitan one that serves Chinese interests while sneering at American values.

For those of us who still believe this nation is exceptional and worth defending, the answer is clear. America deserves better than journalists who praise its defectors while lecturing its patriots.

The contrast between Eileen Gu’s fawning media coverage and the hockey team’s cautionary treatment tells you everything you need to know about whose side the mainstream media is really on.

And it isn’t ours.