If there’s one thing our good friends on the left cannot stand, it’s an uppity, mouthy, attractive woman who doesn’t toe the liberal line. That’s a demographic problem for them, as even The Washington Post reported that “Conservatives really are better looking.”

Sophie Cunningham isn’t rejecting politics. She’s cashing in on them

by Howard Bryant | Sunday, August 2, 2026 | 5:00 AM EDT

Conservatives once demanded sports stay apolitical. Now they’ve embraced a new culture-war politics, and Sophie Cunningham has become one of its most valuable stars

Invoking a wounded innocence that their desire for sports to be simple, just like they used to be, conservatives for a decade and a half have dreaded the word “politics”. Now they cannot get enough.

Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio has spent 40 years in the National Football League unknown except for his defensive schemes, but last week opened his press remarks mocking the congressional testimony of Dr Anthony Fauci, jokingly invoking the Fifth Amendment before taking questions. Apropos of nothing, President Trump publicly surmised that LeBron James might be a racist. Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham is now in the act, accepting the role as the right’s anti-Black, anti-transgender culture war ambassador, the role originally intended for Caitlin Clark.

BZZT! Wrong answer! At what point was either Miss Clark assigned, or Miss Cunningham accepted, “the right’s anti-Black” ambassador? Both ladies play in the WNBA, a league which has a significant number, and perhaps a majority of black athletes. Have either of those ladies said anything negative about black teammates or opponents based on their race?

If Clark has lacked the courage and dexterity to say anything beyond the milky and ambiguous, Sophie Cunningham does not suffer from such internal conflicts. Largely anonymous politically or otherwise during her eight-year career, Cunningham – she of the viral finger-point which has been adopted as a symbol of the white animosity toward the WNBA culture – is in her moment. Her comments in a lengthy 21 July ESPN profile stating her opposition to transgender athletes has earned her hero status of the specious “Protect Our Girls” movement, even though you’d need a microscope to find any critical mass of transgender women participating in sports at any level.

So, Miss Clark has kept out of the political debates, and author Howard Bryant declared that she “lacked the courage and dexterity to say anything beyond the milky and ambiguous,” but once Miss Cunningham said something “beyond the milky and ambiguous,” he declared it “anti-black,” even though she said nothing at all about race.

An opponent conflicting with another opponent, one white and one black, was surmised by Mr Bryant to have been a racial incident. Miss Cunningham’s opponent of ire in that particular incident was Dewanna Bonner, who had played for the Indiana Fever, Miss Cunningham’s team, in 2025, but lost her starting job to Lexie Hull after three games. After several games coming off the bench, Miss Bonner was listed as out for “personal reasons,” and she basically quit on the team.

Who is Howard Bryant? A long time sportswriter, he has specialized in writing about race in sports.^[1]From Wikipedia: ==Works== *”Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston” (2003) {{ISBN|0807009792}} *”Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League … Continue reading Is it possible, just possible, that Mr Bryant sees everything through the prism of race?

The Indiana Fever have several white players, two of whom, Misses Clark and Hull, start, but plenty of black players on the roster as well. Aliyah Boston is their rock of a center, and Kelsey Mitchell is having an MVP-type season. Miss Cunningham, who had started earlier in the year, is usually the first player off the bench, playing the same wing guard position as Miss Hull. The team is currently sitting at 19-11, and well in the playoff picture; the team and their teamwork are obviously good.

Cunningham plays role of the blithe and bubbly iconoclast, oblivious to the world around as she unapologetically speaks her truths, but she is every bit as political as Colin Kaepernick, Megan Rapinoe, or her locked-armed, T-shirt wearing colleagues that defined the WNBA when she first entered the league in 2019. Cunningham forged a tough, take-no-prisoners-without-taking-herself-too-seriously persona, but was too meek to address the toxic roots of her newfound fame.

So, Mr Bryant seemingly approves of Mr Kaepernick and Miss Rapinoe speaking out, but when Miss Cunningham does it’s due to “the toxic roots of her newfound fame.” What she has actually said is that men should not be competing in sports against women, something with which huge majorities of Americans agree, but the hard left do not.

It’s actually pretty simple: are the ‘transgendered’ really the sex they claim to be, or are they physically different, in ways that make a difference when it comes to sports, from the sex they claim to be? Ellen Page, who now claims to be a man named Elliot Page, was widely mocked as the 5’1″ skinny actor was cast as a brave and fierce Spartan warrior in The Odessey, because she looks nothing like a man or a warrior. Will Thomas, who claims that he’s now a woman named “Lia,” went from the number 462^nd ranked male university swimmer in his junior year to the number one ranked female swimmer as a senior; he won an NCAA championship as a women’s swimmer, something to which he never came close as a man.^[2]The COVID-19 panicdemic interrupted college athletics for a year, putting a one-year gap between Mr Thomas’ junior and senior years. Abraham Delgado, who now calls himself “A B Hernandez,”^[3]DailyMail.com can also reveal that AB’s name at birth was Abraham Delgado, born in Riverside, California, on August 4, 2008, according to court records filed by Nereyda (Hernandez) in June … Continue reading has won several California state high school championships in track and field, competing not against boys, but girls.

We can have sympathy for people suffering from “gender dysphoria,” the mental illness which leads them to believe that they really are or should be the opposite sex from what their biology dictates, but that does not make them what they actually want to be; sex is an immutable characteristic that no amount of hormone treatments or surgery can change. And really, really, really wishing that they were girls does not change the fact that males and females have a significantly different hip structure, something which makes a real difference in running, jumping, and transmission of muscular power in the legs.

Mr Bryant’s concluding two paragraphs tell us how much he hates the Western culture in which he has become successful, writing about that most Western of cultures, professional sports:

The great essayist Rebecca Solnit would refer to this eliding as “status quo bias”, neutral-appearing coverage because the actions of the mainstream are baked into the everyday, but whatever qualifies as normal is nevertheless political, especially in a time when today’s normal is so obviously corrosive. She knows exactly who she’s talking to and what she’s not protecting, which is the old rebellious WNBA culture. Sophie Cunningham is not a rebel. She’s a sentry.

The second difference is that in an attention economy, where being noticed is the currency, Cunningham is using the attention not to further a cause, but to further herself. She has been likened as a modern-day Dennis Rodman in her ability to draw attention to herself, but Rodman was a Hall of Fame player and as a player, Cunningham is moderately impactful. She understands the source of the attention – the white dude bros who are the engine of the male sports economy who need a sexy, long-legged blonde to fuel their interest in the women’s – and the avenues it provides: the broadcast booth, the paid celebrity appearances, the playful get-over-yourselves UFC ring girl brand. She’s setting up her second act, and if she plays these 15 minutes right, they could last 30 years. It’s an obvious, empty grift for an obvious, empty culture.

Have we not all attempted to further ourselves? Have we not done so to make money and improve our lives? Mr Bryant has certainly done so with his writing career, something in which he has left many other journalistic hopefuls in the dust. Miss Cunningham turns thirty 13 days from now; her time in the league is limited. Doesn’t it make sense that she’d be marketing herself for future endeavors?

Then there was the tweet to the right, of a ‘fan’ at a WNBA game. This lady had a sign which said, “I didn’t think I could dislike anyone more than Clark. Congrats Cunningham.” And I have to wonder what made her hate Miss Clark so much. As Mr Bryant noted, Miss Clark has not been addressing political issues at all, so what is there to hate about her? Basically, she just plays good basketball, and has brought far more attention, fans, and television broadcasts of the league. If someone is a fan of the WNBA, why would anyone object to that? I’m tempted to attribute it to the lady’s Jabba the Hut physique, but there have been plenty of other WNBA players just as white and just as attractive as Miss Clark: Sabrinia Ionescue, Brianna Stewart, Cameron Brink, and others, though it was Miss Clark, and not the other attractive ladies, some of whom entered the league before Miss Clark, who brought the increased attention to the WNBA.

Maybe she hates that Miss Clark broke Pete Maravich’s NCAA career scoring record, though it took her four years, while “Pistol Pete” only played three. 🙂

It was Mr Bryant who injected the consideration of race, not Miss Cunningham, unless, of course, he believes that simply by being white, she injected race. His article says far more about Mr Bryant than it does about Miss Cunningham.