I already covered the political theater of this above. I'm not saying one side dug their heels and the other didn't.. but the left immediately pulled the race/gender/sexuality card with BG.. and that didn't sit well with people. Neither did attempting to exchange actual prisoners of war for an entertainer. A lot of us on the other side of the aisle said "what a second..".
I said in another post, I think all this outage (fake and real) from the liberals likely buried BG. If you didn't make such a fuss over this, I'm not sure Putin goes all in on this. Instead of working with Russia, it was an immediate demanding of progressives to let her go, right this instance.
It's unfortunate that repubs are celebrating (if we can call it that) over someone stuck in jail for a decade over weed.. but when the left started their attacks, defending someone who already slandered the US before.. it's hard not to do a victory lap here. Lesson learned.
Certainly possible a trade happens if Griner's friends/family eased up on the public pressure. The State Dept. even told them to chill. And at the end of the day, you cannot trade an arms dealing terrorist for a basketball player most of the country doesn't care all that much about. Although with Putin, it's entirely possible
his regime makes this a big deal if some on US soil had stayed silent. In fact, I think that's all but certain.
On your last paragraph, shit like that just depresses me and it's a both sides thing, so I'm not putting the blame on one side or the other. None of this is a game, it's life. I don't find the situation funny nor a reason to celebrate, as if my team scored some invisible point on a make believe field. Some of your wording is also a bit dramatic. "left started their attacks", "slandered the US before". C'mon man, "
attack"? "
slandered"? We didn't used to be this tribal or this dramatic. If some disagree with kneeling for example, that's fine, but the ones upset over that have made it to where you must only say amazing things about the US or you're a traitor. That's tribalism.
One other thing I'll bring up - no Kentuckian will dare say anything negative towards Ali now days, but we know he said controversial things as a young man and refused to fight for his country. The ones here pleased about the Griner outcome because of their personal politics would be bashing the ever-loving crap out of Ali if the internet and social media existed back then. And no, Griner doesn't equal Ali, but you know there'd be thread after thread complaining that Ali is woke, hates the country, should leave, needs to shut his damn mouth, is probably a groomer, and plenty of "I'm ashamed he's from Kentucky" comments from the usuals here.
