Leave Sophie Alone: Conservatives Don't Need to Co-Opt Cunningham

redstate.com

I've been around the worlds of media and politics long enough to know when the political parasites have their next host in sight. And this time around, I fear it's WNBA superstar Sophie Cunningham, whose good looks, meme-tastic on-court antics, and unapologetic takes on life have catapulted her into the limelight.

Of course, not all limelight is good or welcome. When Cunningham voiced her support for protecting women's and girls' sports, she became an enemy of the left and their perverted crusade to normalize the presence of male genitalia in women-only spaces. This kind of hatred naturally brings out reactions from the right, many of whom have been victims of the left's bitter rancor. 

We want to protect Sophie from her haters because we've been there.

Sophie herself became famous, in part, for her desire to protect her Indiana Fever teammate, Caitlin Clark, from the throat-punching, eye-poking thugs of the WNBA (and the refs who seem to turn a, well, blind eye to it all). According to ESPN, Sophie's Instagram following shot from 300,000 to 1.4 million last summer after she grabbed Connecticut guard Jacy Sheldon around the neck and threw her down onto the court after Sheldon gleefully poked Clark in the eye. 

A heroine was born. 

SEE ALSO: Sophie Cunningham Is the New Poster Girl for Unapologetic Femininity and We're All Here for It

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Since then, Sophie's follower count has surpassed three million, she's memed herself into infamy, she's been the ring girl at a UFC fight night, she's launched a shoe in collaboration with Adidas, and her unrepentant "I said what I said" attitude to her beliefs has earned her a legion of new fans. 

Here's exactly what she said that caught the attention of conservatives and earned the left's wrath: “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

Now, she finds herself in the cultural crosshairs of those who think biological males belong in girls' sports and those fighting to prevent that from happening. Both sides want a piece of her, but neither should get one.

This is where a thought-provoking tweet from DeSantis advisor Christina Pushaw comes in. Sophie Cunningham, wrote Pushaw, would "make a much bigger cultural impact by staying right where she is" and not being consumed by what Pushaw called "Con Inc." 

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I hope Sophie Cunningham stays far away from the Con Inc / media / influencer ecosystem. 

She could make a much bigger cultural impact by staying right where she is, doing what she loves, and speaking on issues she truly cares about to young women who are apolitical or liberal (the vast majority of young women in America). As opposed to entering an echo chamber and preaching to the choir.

Pushaw is 100 percent correct here. We can't let Sophie Cunningham be absorbed into the right's "influencer ecosystem," where her influence over normies like herself would undoubtedly wane. Yes, young girls need positive role models, but no, the right doesn't need to bring her into our own echo chamber. Nope, nope, nope.

And I get why we've done this in the past. Conservatives are so starved for genuine heroes and heroines that we try to subsume anyone with a modicum of fame and a controversial opinion that gets them in trouble with the cancel culture crowd. We bring them under our various umbrellas, give them podcasts, sell merchandise bearing their faces, and make them headline speakers at dinners and conferences. 

Often, we elevate them above their actual conservative bona fides, which makes the effort and money spent all for naught. 

Sophie Cunningham is a unique talent. She speaks from the heart and has earned the admiration of millions precisely because she doesn't sound like she was manufactured by a political consulting shop.

That authenticity is her superpower – and the quickest way to destroy it would be to slap a partisan label on her and send her trudging her way through the conference circuit repeating the same applause lines to the same people who already agree with her.

Let's just let Sophie be Sophie and call it a day.