META: "The End of "Stick to Sports" (MGoBlog Mentioned in Ringer article)

Submitted by jmstranger on

Interesting article about sports writers possibly getting outside their lane? Mentions our Fearless Leader as an example. Should sports be safe spaces from politics? Should we demand sports writers stay inside the realm of sports? https://theringer.com/sportswriters-media-donald-trump-politics-a8b332b…

[Ed-S: aaaand it's done. Had to banish a 6-year veteran. No more nice things]

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Bigku22

January 30th, 2017 at 6:24 PM ^

Blaming politics for the downfall of the football and basketball seasons, and then advocating people completely ignore the actions of the current President. 

HOLY FUCK, that is literally one of the dumbest statements I've ever heard in my entire life, and it is hard for me to phathom how a human could even come to those conclusions.

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SFBlue

January 30th, 2017 at 4:45 PM ^

This is a false divide. Sports exist in a broader culture. It's that culture that is important, ultimately, and sports help shape and interpret culture (and vice versa). Trying to divide politics from sports is itself an arch political move.



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socalwolverine1

January 30th, 2017 at 4:46 PM ^

Politics can overwhelm regular sports seasons and cycles.  A lot of us here remember the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.  And the political tension at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin was a precursor to the cancellation of international sporting competition from the run up to WWII to its end in 1945.  

We are hearing more and more coaches, especially in the NBA, taking political stances in interviews.  A fair question is, what happens if the players in college and/or pro sports become politically active given today's politically divided society?  What if a bunch of (already extremely wealthy) top players or an entire team in a given sport decide to protest by sitting out a season or two?  Going forward, the record books could have a lot of asterisks that have nothing to do with who was caught with steroids or HGH in their blood or urine test.

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carolina blue

January 30th, 2017 at 5:07 PM ^

Had to unfollow Ace because of it. He was tweeting pics of the protests at DTW, which is fine, then ended it with "I'm not open to debate on this" which is just being willfully ignorant.



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ppToilet

January 30th, 2017 at 7:06 PM ^

You are their guest. Take your shoes off and show your manners. If you don't like being in their house, you are welcome to leave as are the rest of us.

For the most part, Brian and the mods keep the website apolitical. Whatever you want to do on Twitter/Facebook is your own business as it is theirs. But if you want to pick a fight with them here or on social media, don't act surprised about your ticket to Bolivia.

Joined: 04/18/2011

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Jon06

January 30th, 2017 at 5:22 PM ^

Given that Trump's people caused an actual constitutional crisis in less than 2 weeks, I think you should stick to being a human first and foremost. Say what cries out to be said so this nonsense can be finished and we can get back to sticking to sports. In the meantime, nobody deserves to be provided with an escape from what is being done.

Joined: 09/19/2009

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BlueMan80

January 30th, 2017 at 5:26 PM ^

that lacks political chatter.  I'm here to enjoy Michigan football, fandom, and other sports.  There are a million other places I can go to discuss politics.  This is an oasis of pure Michigan fandom.

Joined: 01/21/2011

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kehnonymous

January 30th, 2017 at 5:37 PM ^

So I accept my opinion here may and perhaps should be taken with a grain of salt.  But still - the question we have to ask is 'why now?' There does come a time when things outside the realm of sport are so weighty that it's impossible to not comment on them - we're all humans who live in the world and it's a world that's more interconnected than ever.  

It's shortsighted to say 'Stick to X and don't comment on politics' when we've already HAD an actor as president during the 80's whose presidency happened to be very consequential and who was generally well-regarded.  And it's one thing if the blogrunners were commenting on every political issue under the sun, and good Lord have there been a lot of them.  If you're dropping hot takes on every Congressional bill that comes out that's one thing.  But there is a time when your conscience compels you to audibly take a stand and genteel impartiality is no longer an option.  I don't have the definitively "right" answer as to when that is, and neither do any of you.  Maybe this weekend's events weren't that right time - there is by definition seldom a convenient time to protest.  But the fact that everyone from Dick Cheney to the Pope to Bernie Sanders is weighing in more or less on the same side is pretty weighty evidence that maybe it was, maybe this might not have been politics as usual.

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WestQuad

January 30th, 2017 at 5:36 PM ^

Politics on a sports blog are a bad idea.   My neighbor down the street went to Michigan as well.  I know this because he put up a flag similar to mine.   The next day I went over to his house to say hello and he had put a political sign in his yard that I vehemently disagreed with.  I didn't stop and say hi because I didn't want to have to discuss politics.    I might say hi is all of the current goings on die down.

Even on a meta thread it is really hard not to spout my snowflake thoughts in response to other posts.   ... but I think I succeeded. 

Joined: 07/22/2011

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username03

January 30th, 2017 at 5:40 PM ^

Since most people now treat politics and sports fairly similarly, pick a team and root for it no matter what, I really don't see much difference. Or maybe they should be seperated more to discourage this, I don't know but I do find it interesting that OSU fans are treated much nicer than somone who roots for a different political team. 

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SalvatoreQuattro

January 30th, 2017 at 5:44 PM ^

What I hate is the gross violation of Godwin's Law

and the references to fascism.

People collectively have no real understanding of Hitler, fascism, or for that matter US history.

Sports writers can talk or write about politics, but they should do their homework before commenting. Learned opinion is in serious short supply these days.



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enlightenedbum

January 30th, 2017 at 6:02 PM ^

People always mistate Godwin's Law.  Here's what it says:

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1."

It makes no value judgment about bringing it up.  So the only thing that would violate Godwin's Law is if no one ever brought up Hitler.

Anyway, Hitler was generally viewed as a clown who could be controlled by conservative elites and got into power with a minority of the vote because the left couldn't get its shit together while it was fighting within itself.  He espoused a racist ideology, scapegoating a semitic people and moving to expel them from the country.

Not saying, just saying.

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SalvatoreQuattro

January 30th, 2017 at 6:45 PM ^

Well, that is not true about Hitler.

Hitler was never controlled by anyone even though conservative elites thought that they could. They were wrong. Terribly wrong. Franz Von Papen thought he could control Hitler which is why he sold out Kurt Von Schleicher.(who has killed in the Night of the Long Knives) He obviously failed.

Hitler and the Nazis actually were actually pretty sophisticated when it came to politics. They said what people wanted to hear. They pandered to their prejudices. They railed against capitalists, communists, and Jews, three categories that were despised by a large amount of Germans. They did the spectacular like flying Hitler all over Germany during their campaigns, the first party to have done so(Fuhrer over Germany is what they called it) and used film to promote the party. The Nazis proved just how immensely powerful of a propaganda tool cinema could be.(still is)


The Nazis were not just brutally murderous thugs. They used economic methods not unlike what FDR used here, they constructed a welfare state, were pragmatic when they had to be(see: Molotov-Ribbentrop compact),and employed Germany's tradition of scientific excellence to build a war machine capable of conquering almost the whole of Western Europe six years.

That is a truly scary government.

One last thing, Weimar Germany was a parliamentary democracy. The Nazi drew 32% of the vote in The last free election(November of 1932) which is pretty significant in a country with five major parties.(Nazis, KPD, Nationalists, Social Democrats, Catholic Center Party) The previous election which was in July of 1932 they drew 37% of the vote.

Muslims are not a race. Mexicans are not one either. Trump is an xenophobic economic Populist which we have seen before. Think Williams Jennings Bryan or Charles Coughlin.




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enlightenedbum

January 30th, 2017 at 7:10 PM ^

Yes, Hitler was viewed as someone who could be controlled by conservatives.  Never said he could.  I may have phrased it poorly though, which is fair.

As for the rest, yep.  Doesn't really change my point.

And sure, Muslims are not a race, but if you ask people in America to envision a Muslim, I bet you are going to get an Arab.  Hispanic is an ethnicity, yes.

And Coughlin became a fascist!  You're backing up the point you're trying to argue against.

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SalvatoreQuattro

January 30th, 2017 at 8:04 PM ^

You have black Hispancis, white Hispanics, and brown Hispanics.  How is that a different race when there is such a variety of physical appearance?

Race, which is a fall construct anyways, is in Anglo-American term based on physical appearance. In Nazi conception it went deeper than skin and into genetic lineage.

 

Coughlin was a melange. He advocated fascism as a means of overthrowing capitalism and democracy. But his beliefs were very much different from fascism in other respects.

 

Per the American Holocaust Museum:

liberty of conscience and education; 

nationalization of resources too important to be held by individuals; 

abolition of the Federal Reserve Board; 

return to Congress the right to coin and regulate money;
rights of workers to organize unions; 

requisition of wealth and conscription of men in times of war; 

and the principle that human rights should outweigh property rights. 

Those are decidely not fascist principles.

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BoFan

January 30th, 2017 at 6:29 PM ^

I agree. And Godwin's law has two negative outcomes. First, using that level of negative attack completely shuts down listening and any ability to have a constructive debate. Second, the over use of Hitler comparisons completely undermines the opportunity and potential impact when the comparison can accurately be made.

For reference, google "the methods of a demagogue."

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BoFan

January 30th, 2017 at 5:59 PM ^

MGoBlog should have a one day open season each month for political discussion on the main page and the board. It could get ugly but at least voices could be heard and others could take a pass.

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LSAClassOf2000

January 30th, 2017 at 6:04 PM ^

Not that anyone will give a shit about what I have to say, but I'll say it.

The "stick to sports" idea is a decent guideline in that not every discussion is germain to politics and clearly if you insert political opinions into a rant on, say, Brad Ausmus' inexplicable need to use the bullpen as a test bed for existential theory, you are reaching. That being said, I feel like asking sportswriter to absolutely keep to themselves on issues they might care about is a little disrespectful to those writers.

To me, that we're actually having this discussion is a bit telling regardless of the times in which we live. We respect bloggers, writers and so forth for their sports knwoeldge and takes but at the same time feel deeply uncomfortable when we discover that they have opinions outside of the subject for which we follow them. Worse, some get upset when those opinions are ones they don't agree with. If those are the sorts of things which can so destroy your view of someone that you can't even fathom their sports opinions, then I guess I question whether or not you actually had respect for that person if you couldn't handle them being, well, a person.

I mean, we could go into a lot of things that play into this, but then we are breaking a rule around here if we do. As a mod on this site, I get accused on occasion of having an agenda and I know many of you are well-aware of my views on various things too, but I like to think that for the most part we do a decent job of killing the threads that get out of control and - once in a rare while - trying to see if we can have a nice thing. Most of the time, we can't, but sometimes, I think we as a group - left, right, up and down - have been oh so close on the odd issue. 

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Are You Not En…

January 30th, 2017 at 6:35 PM ^

We don't subscribe to them to hear their opinions outside of sports. They are top of the class in SPORTS knowledge. Very few of them likely know politics more than a common person. Like I said, I don't care what my dog walker has to say about politics, just that they love my dog. If that relationship moves from a PROFESSIONAL and transitions to a PERSONAL level then by all means discuss it with me. But these PROFESSIONAL sports writers should not use a PROFESSIONAL platform to state their PERSONAL beliefs. It's the epitome of unprofessional. That said, I appreciate all you and the others do for us in regards to M sports. Second to none.



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Umich97

January 30th, 2017 at 6:41 PM ^

They can write about what they want, but I have to ask: Why would they want to? There really isn't any upside. Yes, you might get those who agree with you excited, but the opposite is true of those that don't agree. A sports writer built their audience through sports, why confuse it with politics and risk shrinking your reader base? Just doesn't make much sense to me.



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drzoidburg

January 31st, 2017 at 12:36 AM ^

Yes, as a subject matter your example would be reaching, but to ban ALL topics with even a hint of politics when someone who doesn't like it could just like, *not click on it*....

What happens if laws are proposed that severely limit free speech and you keep sticking to NO POLITICS? You get trampled on is what. What happens if your alma mater issues a statement trying to preserve its community, like it just did, and you lock the thread? You come across as ungrateful, disloyal, and not giving a shit who is trampled on. No not even your blogging is in a vacuum

Now i'm sure i'll get bolivia'd for "some get upset when those opinions are ones they don't agree with"

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IowaBlue

January 30th, 2017 at 6:14 PM ^

I don't post often, I do login and read frequently...
 
There are some very intelligent and funny folks that run and comment on this Michigan sports blog; and I do enjoy the thoughts and opinions they have on the future of Michigan Athletics.
 
However, honestly I don't give a crap what anyone’s political points of view are; nor do I want to read about them on one of the few sports sites I make time to check daily.  I get plastered with enough of that hate and discontent "everywhere else" and it didn't just start in the last few weeks.
 
So, let's enjoy each other’s company, and try to keep from dividing what has brought us all to this one sanctuary in the first place a common love for U of M sports.
 
 
Go Blue!
 

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Heptarch

January 30th, 2017 at 6:15 PM ^

First let me say that as a person deeply involved on a day to day level with politics I support keeping this site free from it.

That said, there are times in each person's life when they feel the need to stand up and be heard, regardless of what they do for a living.  This is America, where we are allowed... indeed, encouraged... to do such things.

Because of that I support every sports writer who feels that they can no longer maintain the division between their work and their beliefs.  Their readers will decide for themselves whether to continue to read or whether a line has been crossed that they can't countenance.

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