Nacre

I am banning myself from social media for a while (time to start a vegetable garden as we head into what will likely be another global economic depression), and thus won't follow the continuing minutiae of this thread. I just want to say on behalf of all the Americans who voted against this insanity that I am sorry for all of this. If the USA still exists as a functioning republic with checks and balances on the executive branch in 2028, then I will be happy regardless of what the IOC decides to do about LA 2028.

I don't entirely disagree, which is one of the many reasons why I voted Harris-Waltz despite being a registered R. But it's important to note that many people voted for Trump without understanding what would happen. In example I know one Venezuelan refugee who hates Chavismo and who voted for Trump because he saw him as anti-socialist; the fool didn't understand that he was consigning himself and other Latin American illegal immigrants to deportation. Another person still loves Trump but hates Elon Musk and blames him for trying to ruin America's farmers so he and other rich people can buy up our country's farmland. The business people I talk to didn't believe Trump would actually start a trade war with Canada, and that this was just something he said to whip up his fanatical core supporters into a xenophobic frenzy. There aren't enough actual neo-Nazis in America for them to win an election without winning over lots of other voters who don't believe they are putting neo-Nazis in the Oval Office.

I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs - even the locally legal varieties. Nonetheless I have no problem with other people choosing to do those things; I disagree with the decision, but I accept their right to make a different decision than I would make. You can be conservative yourself and accept people who are different than you. And then there is another group of people who hate other people for not conforming to their values. Utah being conservative is not a problem for the IOC. It's only a problem if it stretches to hating other people because they are from a different country, or a different religion (which Mormons themselves have to face) and so on.

Utah is red, but it is a very different kind of red than the South and Midwest as the Mormons are minorities themselves and are generally very welcoming of outsiders. I suppose it would be the equivalent of Russia hosting an event in Tatarstan.

Sports like cricket and baseball should be included when the host country already has facilities for those sports. Brisbane does not have a large enough stadium to pay for the added cost of hosting the additional athletes. Los Angeles: 56,000 seats/game * 16 games * $50 USD/seat = $44.8 million USD revenue ($311,111 USD/athlete) Brisbane: 1,500 seats/game * 16 games * $50 AUD/seat = $1.2 million AUD revenue ($5,250 USD/athlete) For the same reason I think it is a bit silly for LA to host cricket, but at least they already have a free athletes village, so they don't need to spend on accommodation for the cricket players. Brisbane already needs to find the money for an athletics stadium. Let's not burden the taxpayers of Queensland with anything unnecessary.

For one, if the US goes forward with Trump's Gaza "plan", the Arab states will likely be forced to reduce their relations with the USA or face revolt by their people. Other countries with large Muslim populations (like France and Germany) may also feel pressured to make some public statements against the USA. Widespread withdrawals of an American Olympics and World Cup are very realistic.

Hopefully this is one of the 3/4ths of the crazy things that Trump threatens to do that he doesn't follow through on rather than the 25% that he does. The minority of Americans who want this to happen probably haven't considered that it would require concentration camps (and worse) to accomplish it. Once they do this idea should fade. Then again, I wasn't able to convince my conservative family members that invading Iraq would unleash chaos in the middle east and trap the US military into containing brush fires there for decades, so maybe people really are that stupid and/or awful.

To be clear, Canada and Mexico are victims, not co-belligerents. None of this makes any sense, and I say that as a conservative who agrees with 90% of the stuff Adam Smith wrote. Only a nationalist could believe that increasing US inflation by 2% and Canadian inflation by 5% is somehow a win for the US "because the Canadians will be hurt worse than us."

Whatever resources are exploited in Greenland can be purchased by American companies as part of US-EU trade. Denmark is in NATO and the USA has maintained a military station of some sort on Greenland since WW2. There's no need to change Greenland's status to put American aircraft there. There's no rational reason for the USA to try to claim Denmark. Even from a purely self-interested perspective. This is simply Trump wanting to claim territory on a map to appeal to jingoistic nationalists.

If only we could put all of the nationalists in the world in a desert somewhere and let them fight to the death while leaving the rest of the world alone. Incidentally, there is absolutely no benefit to the US from owning the Panama Canal or Greenland. American ships can freely use the canal and American businesses can buy fish from Denmark. All without fighting a war against our traditional allies and alienating the rest of the world. This is 100% about narcissistic egoism and "America, F--- Yeah!"

The irony is that all of the important lessons for the Olympics were also true for the six world's fairs/expositions universelle that Paris hosted back in 1855-1900. The events that were very large and massively overbuilt lost tons of money. The events that were modest and built on existing infrastructure did well. The most important benefit was the infrastructure that got built for the future: le Tour Eiffel, Paris Metro, Grand Palais, etc. The important legacy of Barcelona 1992 is the reconstruction of Barcelona's beaches and tourist infrastructure, the legacy of London 2012 is the gentrification of the east end around the Olympic Park, etc. Of course, those have downsides too, just as the Haussman era redevelopment of Paris in the late 1800's also caused an increase in cost of living in Paris.

Baseball makes a lot of revenue for the organizing committee in a city that already has large stadiums for it. ($50/ticket * 40,000 tickets/match * 16 matches = $32 million) It also lets the host spread some competition across their country and gives more people a chance to see a small part of the Olympics in person. These are the same reasons that football is in the Olympics despite the fact that nobody really cares about Olympic football. Similarly, if India were to host the Olympics then cricket should absolutely take part. The key difference is that football, baseball and cricket are legitimate competitive sports in their own right, whereas breakdancing is not. If they want to keep it in the Olympics, it should stay as an artistic feature rather than as a sport.

FWIW the heat index for Orlando in the summer is not too much worse than Beijing or Tokyo, but I think those places are themselves on the edge of acceptable heat-related problems for athletes and spectators. They would have to host most events at night to reduce the risk of heat stroke, and given that there are numerous other cities in the USA that don't have heat as high it would be crazy to choose Orlando. If we (the USA) really want another city to host the games again after LA then my choice would be Philadelphia. They already have the skeleton of an Olympic Park. https://scssd.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/bg-info.jpg 1) Build some parking garages to replace the sea of parking stalls around the stadiums, 2) build two new subway/metro lines to access the area, and 3) build a new convertible stadium for the Philadelphia Union (MLS) to replace their suburban stadium, and 4) build apartment buildings to serve as the Olympic village and then affordable housing after the Olympics. This plan would be "expensive but worth it" ala London 2012 or Barcelona 1996.

For Canada I think it is not only the vestiges of colonialism that are problematic, but also the sports themselves. Canada at this point is fully integrated into the North American sports system. Australia should be fairly easy to fit in Asian sport if it really wants to. It would easily be grouped with the other "Zone 5" countries in Southeast Asia like Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. And, after all, it's not entirely culturally separated from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and even to a lesser extent the Philippines (55% of Filipinos speak English).

I think le basket is popular in France, and the best stars show up for the Olympics unlike in mens football, so Olympic basketball is a relatively big draw. And the French have some amazing players too (Victor Wembanyama!), albeit none of them guards. How much do people in France care about the mens football tournament given that so few of the star players are competing?