The Summer Olympics are underway in Paris, and the right is getting triggered.
In an interview on the Fox Business Channel Monday morning, Representative Ryan Zinke was asked about new FBI confirmation that Donald Trump was actually struck by a bullet after a gunman in Pennsylvania tried to assassinate him earlier this month. Zinke, for some reason, decided to connect it to conservatives’ grievances over the Olympics.
“Trump is as much of a movement as it is a candidate, because America is not comfortable where we are. We’re not comfortable watching the Olympics. Disgusting display, dishonorable. We’re not comfortable with the woke. We’re not comfortable about getting beat up on foreign shores,” Zinke said.
GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke: "Trump is as much of a movement as it is a candidate, because America is not comfortable where we are. We're not comfortable watching the Olympics. Disgusting display, dishonorable. We're not comfortable with the woke." pic.twitter.com/XXGZIAeAGd
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 29, 2024
Zinke was likely referring to Paris’s colorful display during the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday, which was decried by conservatives for its flamboyance and unabashed celebration of the LGBTQ+ community. In particular, right-wing religious figures and politicians claimed that one scene in the ceremony that featured drag queens, a transgender model, and a nearly naked blue man at a table of food was a disrespectful representation of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, The Last Supper, which depicts Jesus Christ’s last meal with his apostles.
Several conservatives criticized the ceremony and scene, including Speaker Mike Johnson, who posted on X (formerly Twitter) that it was “shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world.”
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called it an “anti-Christian” and “satanic, trans, and occult” opening ceremony.
Despite the right-wing meltdown, art experts pointed out that the scene was an homage to a different painting, The Feast of the Gods, based on Greek mythology. The blue man represented Dionysius, the Greek god of feasting and wine, said the ceremony’s creative director, Thomas Jolly, who flat-out denied any connection to The Last Supper.
“I think it was pretty clear. There’s Dionysus who arrives at the table.… Why is he there? Because he’s the god of feasting, of wine, and the father of Sequana, the goddess of the River Seine,” Jolly told a French TV station.
It’s one thing to make a religious argument against the Olympic opening ceremony, but it was created and staged by the French and does not reflect U.S. politics, except in how conservatives have reacted to it. Most people have turned their attention to the Olympics’ actual sports now, but conservatives, in all of their weirdness today, still can’t stop obsessing over anything they think is an affront to them.
