Even Simone Biles can be a pretext for sadistic bullying from the Fox party.

On Fox, a growing cadre of white, male rightwing sports talking heads sharpened their claws, ignoring the racial and gendered nuance of Biles’ experience. On his Fox Sports radio show Doug Gottlieb claimed Biles hasn’t faced criticism in her career. “For years, women have said, all we want to be judged as is equal,” he opined. “Generally, we don’t have any sort of critique for our female sports teams. On one hand you want to be viewed, treated, and compensated the same as the men, but on the other hand whatever you do, just don’t be critical of us.”

On the one hand you want to be equals, but on the other hand you keep saying you have rights. What a puzzler, yeah?

Clay Travis has taken over many of the radio slots occupied by Rush Limbaugh since the conservative commentator’s death. On another Fox show, Travis also said that Biles has been held to a different standard and said she should apologize to her fellow gymnasts for quitting. “She wasn’t there for them, and that represents a fundamental breach of the most important aspect of team sports.” And uber-conservative pundit Charlie Kirk went even further on his podcast, calling Biles “selfish”, “immature”, “a shame to the country” and a “sociopath”. He added: “Simone Biles just showed the rest of the nation that when things get tough, you shatter into a million pieces.”

Then how did she win all those medals? If she shatters into a million pieces when things get tough, how on earth did she ever get so good at her sport?

Silly questions of course, because they don’t mean any of it, it’s just a performance. A stupid ugly sexist racist performance. No prize.