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

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.

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.

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.

Her whiteness sells. Her whiteness and straightness in a time of nationwide anti-blackness and homophobia sell even more. Cunningham doesn't fight it. She bathes in it.

Sophie Cunningham is not a rebel. She's a sentry.

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.