As she accepted her second gold medal at the Paris Olympics yesterday, GOAT (Greatest of All Time) American gymnast Simone Biles, whose total haul of Olympic gold is six, appeared by all accounts to diss President Trump. Befitting the superstar celebrity Biles has become, her words on social media were accorded significant attention and high visibility in the MSM, including “Simone Biles Seemingly Takes Swipe At Donald Trump After Olympic Triumph,” an article yesterday at Deadline:

Simone Biles has celebrated her latest Olympic triumph with an apparent swipe at Donald Trump...

On Friday morning, she reflected on her latest moment of glory with a post on Twitter/X that read: “I love my black job.”

She was responding to a comment from Ricky Davila, a singer-songwriter from Philadelphia. “Simone Biles being the GOAT, winning Gold medals and dominating gymnastics is her black job,” Davila said.

Biles’ post appeared to be a reference to comments made by Trump in recent weeks. During the CNN election debate and at a rally in June, Trump warned that migrants were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.” He repeated this claim on Wednesday when he spoke at the National Associate of Black Journalists convention.

The former president told a roomful of Black journalists: “I will tell you that coming from the border, are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs.” Asked to explain the baseless remark, Trump added: “A Black job is anybody that has a job. That’s what it is.”

In its report, USA Today noted:

Biles’ comment pokes fun at a moment from the June 27 presidential debate between President Joe Biden and Trump. The Republican presidential nominee made the “Black jobs“ remark while explaining his thoughts on immigrants’ impact on the U.S. economy.

“They’re taking Black jobs now and it could be 18, it could be 19 and even 20 million people,” Trump said during the debate. “They’re taking Black jobs, and they’re taking Hispanic jobs, and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”

The comment was criticized after the debate, as some questioned what occupations would qualify as a “Black job.”

Image: President Joe Biden presents the Medal of Freedom to Simon Biles, July 7, 2022, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz Public Domain cropped)

I admit to paying scant attention to Big Sports. Nonetheless, whenever I have seen coverage of or read reporting about Biles, starting with her emotional breakdown during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, it feels like the endless reporting and analysis of her personal psychodramas have tended to overshadow more traditional sports reporting on her remarkable athletic achievements. In our celebrity confessional culture, I think of her as the Taylor Swift of sports, where “herstory“ overwhelms the individual’s talents and accomplishments.

The limited time I’ve spent watching NBC’s around-the-clock coverage of Olympics 2024 has reinforced this impression. Gauzy pre-recorded interviews with Biles, emoting about the personal challenges she’s faced and the therapies she’s employed to get her back to the mountaintop on the world stage, have been prominent.

There’s no question about Biles’ excellence in her chosen field. But like other mega celebs, do we need to have the myriad struggles in her life told and retold?

As the late Andrew Breitbart stated succinctly—and accurately—“Politics is downstream of culture.” And Biles appears to be providing the world with another example. At least 90 percent of the culture in 2024—Big Sports, Big Entertainment (Hollywood, television, “music”), Big Media, Big Education, Big Everything—is more or less all in on Kamala Harris, this season’s political “It Girl.” And needless to say, almost uniformly down on Donald Trump and his possible return to the presidency.

As USA Today reported:

Biles’ X post already has over 614,000 likes, 73,000 reposts and 8,500 comments as of midday Friday...

It didn’t take long for Biles’ comment on X to catch the attention of and be applauded by Democrat politicians.

Biles’ “Black job” post received support from U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Davila and thousands of commenters.

Crockett, who has served as the U.S. representative from Texas’s 30th congressional district since 2023, commented on Biles’ X post saying, “And BABY GIRL, you are good at it! Sooooo damn proud!”

Meanwhile, NBC’s television coverage of the Paris Olympics is off to a strong start, with an average of 34 million people watching NBC TV and pay-per-view online streams during the prime viewing hours. The Olympics is the one sporting event that attracts more female than male viewers—approximately 55% to 45%. Designing the broadcasts to appeal to women may help to account for the more personal focus of the coverage. Major advertisers are aware of this advantage to reach female viewers:

Procter & Gamble’s “Thank You Mom” and “Lead with Love” campaigns, for example, tap into the emotion of the games by highlighting the support that families provide to aspiring athletes, as well as the caring side of the competitors.

NBC’s targeting female viewers may also explain the presence for the first time this year of “elder statesman of American hip-hop” and rapper Snoop Dogg as an on-camera Olympics special correspondent. NBC reportedly hired Snoop Dogg to pump up the ratings.

Addenda to my blog yesterday on Don Lemon

After my blog on former CNN prime time host Don Lemon’s full-throated endorsement of Kamala Harris was posted yesterday, another oddity of Lemon’s CNN career, captured on video, came to my attention.

In early 2019, after Kamala Harris declared her candidacy for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination, Lemon had a spirited exchange with one of the guests on his CNN program, April Ryan, the White House correspondent for The Grio who has also been a contributor to CNN and now MSNBC. Interestingly (to say the least), Lemon was insisting that Kamala Harris is not “African-American” because Jamaica, where her father was born, is not part of America.

On his CNN show in Feb 2019, Don Lemon objected to journalist April Ryan's insistence that Kamala Harris is African-American. The exchange has been preserved on video. #Kamala2024 #Trump2024 @BoSnerdley #CNN #Election2024 pic.twitter.com/A0pfdm0e9p

— Peter Chowka (@PChowka) August 3, 2024

Peter Barry Chowka has been reporting on national elections since 1964, starting in high school. Later, he reported from several national political conventions and traveled around the country with presidential candidates. Peter is a frequent invited guest on the BBC, the largest broadcaster in the world (his July 27 appearance is here). He has been a frequent contributor to American Thinker since 2007.