WNBA Dumpster Fire Is Preview of America Under Liberal Rule

Want to know what America would look like if it were run entirely by woke liberal scolds? Just look at the disaster that is the WNBA.

The WNBA has rightly been under fire in recent days over the response from many players and coaches in the league to the fallout from a flagrant foul committed by Chicago Sky guard DiJonai Carrington against Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham. But whether you’re a WNBA fan or not (and given the league’s dismal ratings, you’re likely not) it’s worth taking note of this kerfuffle because it provides a glimpse into the absurdity of an institution where wokeness and racial grievance politics are the rule of the realm.

During a match between the Sky and Fever on August 8, Cunningham was running down the court for an open layup when Carrington caught up to her from behind. In a blatantly malicious move, Carrington clotheslined Cunningham in the neck, causing her to fall hard to the ground. After a conversation, the referees slapped Carrington with a “Flagrant 2” foul, leading to her immediate ejection.

Notably, Carrington was already known as one of the dirtiest players in the league. In 2024, she appeared to intentionally poke Fever star Caitlin Clark in the eye but was not called for a foul. In other instances she has ripped at players’ faces or pulled their hair.

Still, Carrington’s latest flagrant foul might have been the end of the story once she walked off the court had she not immediately gone to the locker room and posted “WHITE PRIVILEGE” on X, tagging the Indiana Fever. (She has since absurdly claimed that the post was not about Cunningham.)

Carrington’s comment prompted a wave of backlash from the few conservative voices left in sports media – but bizarrely, not from Cunningham’s own coaches and teammates. Instead of defending her own player, Fever coach Stephanie White defended Carrington. “One of the things about [Carrington] is that she’s going to play her butt off, man,” White said. “She’s going to compete. Nobody’s going to go walking in for a layup.”

Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy had the correct reaction in calling for White to lose her job.

“This isn’t politics; your player got assaulted,” Portnoy said. “She acts like she’s the coach of the other team. I don’t care if she’s the best X’s and O’s, which she’s not, get her the hell out of there. Either defend your players or get lost.”

However, Fever leadership instead doubled down, defending White and by default siding with Carrington over the organization’s own player. “Coach White has done a tremendous job leading the Fever,” organization president Kelly Krauskopf said. “She has the full support of leadership.”

To any level-headed American – and especially sports fans – it undoubtedly seems totally insane for a coach to openly defend an opposing player who attacked a player on her team. But the WNBA isn’t run by normal and sane people. It’s run by totally brainwashed progressive activists who happen to also be interested in basketball.

Lost in all the hubbub over Carrington’s X post is the fact that this isn’t Cunningham’s first time in the news recently. Earlier this summer, Cunningham gave an interview to ESPN in which she stated that young girls “shouldn't have to go against biological men” in sports.

Cunningham followed that up by saying that she wanted to “extend love” to everyone, but added, “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.”

Those comments are more or less in line with what polls show the vast majority of Americans believe. But to the woke hall monitors that fill the ranks of the WNBA, Cunningham had committed the cardinal sin of breaking with progressive orthodoxy.

The WNBA union denounced Cunningham’s comments. Clark, Cunningham’s teammate, refused to defend her or women’s sports generally. Coach White (unsurprisingly) also demurred when asked about the issue, claiming that she’s “not educated enough” to say whether biological men should be able to compete in the WNBA.

In light of this, the fact that Cunningham’s own teammates and coaches turned on her starts to make more sense. Cunningham already had one strike against her for being white. That might have been forgiven had she repeated all the left-wing slogans about “systemic racism” and being an “ally” to the “trans community.” But Cunningham refused to play that game, and as a result she had a target put on her back in the media and on the basketball court.

This entire debacle has only invited more scrutiny on the WNBA, and what it reveals isn’t pretty. Like Cunningham, Caitlin Clark – by far the most popular and exciting player in the league – has faced open discrimination and repeated attacks on the court for being white. Yet everyone in the WNBA is too terrified to state this obvious fact. Instead of leaning into Clark’s popularity to grow the sport, the WNBA has snubbed her at every opportunity.

There’s also the fact that, as the reaction to Cunningham’s comments demonstrated, the WNBA apparently doesn’t even know what the word “women” in its name means. Former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White have put a fine point on this by declaring for the WNBA draft in an open challenge to the league to define its eligibility standards.

And perhaps most damning of all, despite substantial growth in the league’s popularity in recent years, the WNBA still can’t turn a profit. It relies on subsidies from the NBA to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year.

So, to recap, the WNBA is run exclusively by liberals who can’t tell you what a woman is, will attack any woman – even their own teammates and players – who dares to suggest that basic biology means something, look the other way when it comes to open anti-white racism in the league, and can’t come close to turning a profit.

This is what liberals want for the entire country. There is not a single social or political value pushed by the WNBA that conflicts with the Democrat Party platform. Americans – sports fans or not – should take note.