Remember when MTV played music videos? Remember when ESPN talked mainly about sports? Not anymore for both. Conservative pundit Clay Travis calls out ESPN.

As a former sports executive with ESPN, I saw the handwriting on the wall and departed in 2006. They have lost their soul. Starts at the top with Disney CEO. Sad. Very Sad 💯

— Todd 4 Freedom 💪🏻 (@Tcraw444) July 4, 2022

Travis: Before I systematically destruct a woke ESPN column, some background: this column was written by Howard Bryant, a man currently being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to opine on sports for ESPN, despite having no discernible talent whatsoever. That’s fine, it’s a testament to the greatness of American exceptionalism that no talent chumps like Bryant can make a boat load of money in sports media despite having no ability in writing, radio or TV.

But while Bryant’s fealty to woke politics is all too common at ESPN, Bryant is unique in one way: he’s been previously arrested for assaulting his wife in public, in front of his six year old son no less, and also charged with assaulting a police officer who arrived to protect his wife, after he was observed choking her in public. Bryant, a black man married to a white woman he was accused of choking in public, initially offered as his defense that racism was to blame for his arrest before pleading the charges down to six months of probation. Nevertheless you’d think someone making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year despite (allegedly) choking his wife and attacking a police officer and pleading down the charges with six months probation, might be inclined to think America is an incredibly forgiving place. After all, does Disney employ that many (alleged) wife and police assaulters? Not to my knowledge.

But, alas, despite the forgiving nature of a country that has made a woke imbecile like Bryant fairly wealthy compared to the average American, Bryant flails away impotently for thousands and thousands of words without ever managing to strike any target, before collapsing in a final spasm of incompetence…

Now I’m not an expert on 4th of July celebrations all over the country, but I did grow up in the 1980’s and the 1990’s, before 9/11 occurred, and everywhere I ever went on the 4th of July was a massive celebration. Everywhere. When I was in college in Washington, D.C. and hundreds of thousands of people packed the national mall to watch fireworks, it had nothing to do with 9/11 because it hadn’t happened yet. Let’s continue in the column.

“Grilling, baseball and fireworks, first replaced by symbols — and now by a country tearing itself completely apart. July 4, 2022, falls in the midst of devastation. It is Independence Day in America with independence under current and relentless assault. From Miranda rights to the environment, to the separation of church and state, to guns — so many guns — people are reeling. The U.S. Supreme Court has run a chain saw through what two generations of Americans had known to be the legal baselines of their lives. Tens of millions of women today do not feel freedom and certainly are not celebrating independence. The people who can become pregnant who feel celebratory toward the Court may do so from the victory of their position, but it nevertheless remains true that the power of choice — and the right to privacy — has been taken from all of them.”

…From this point forward, the article is all left wing political grievance and victim culture. That’s fine, his self-defeating woke arguments are his own, but what’s important here is they are also ESPN’s own opinions. Even if you feel Bryant’s rambling screed serves ESPN’s stated goal of “Serving sports fans. Any time. Anywhere,” what’s important to recognize is an opinion arguing the exact opposite of this column would never be permitted or published anywhere at ESPN.

ESPN wouldn’t allow any columnist to publish a piece saying this is the greatest July 4th in American history because the Supreme Court has protected unborn children and gun rights. If any editor even pitched this idea, he or she would be fired. And no columnist with this opinion would be permitted to be published. That’s despite the fact that many of the people consuming ESPN’s content daily — and employed at ESPN itself — believe in both of these things.”