2026-08-09T10:30:29.242Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/09/politics/patriot-games-trump-partisan-patriotic-branding
这项赛事的前提听起来几乎像虚构小说：每个州、领地以及部分原住民部落各选出一名男孩和一名女孩，被送往俄亥俄州的一处私人校园，参加名为“爱国者运动会”的电视直播体育赛事。这是一项由特朗普支持的青少年赛事，包含障碍赛道、爱国主义感言，不可避免地被拿来与《饥饿游戏》相提并论。
只不过，和这本反乌托邦小说及同名电影系列中孩子们在电视直播的生存对决中相互厮杀的设定不同，“爱国者运动会”的赌注并非生死。男女冠军各将获得12.5万美元的大学奖学金。
对于16岁的泰勒·赫尔曼来说，参赛的理由很简单。在她的参赛申请视频中，她介绍了自己的年龄、亚利桑那州的学校，以及参赛的原因：她想要帮助“让爱国主义重回美国”。
“我觉得现在很多时候，我们都感觉彼此疏远，”这位切诺基族代表赫尔曼在接受CNN采访时表示，“我认为我们需要一些能将大家凝聚在一起的东西，因为我们是美利坚合众国，我们需要更团结一点。”
但赫尔曼表示，她已经亲身体验到“爱国者运动会”有多具争议性。
“确实有不少人不再和我说话了，”赫尔曼在谈到自己决定参赛时说道。
“我认识的相当多人跟我说，他们憎恨这个国家，因为他们憎恨政府，”赫尔曼补充道，“爱国主义不属于任何一个政党。”
请在最新一期CNN的《One Thing》播客中收听更多选手的采访。
这场赛事将于周末在ESPN直播，并于8月13日在ABC播出黄金时段特别节目，它是特朗普政府为庆祝美国建国250周年，将体育精神与强硬政治相结合的最新案例。
此次赛事由“自由250”组织策划，这是一个由特朗普总统支持的团体，此前在夏季举办了多场活动：包括在白宫草坪举办的UFC格斗之夜（搭配军用飞机飞越仪式）、国家广场的“伟大美国州博览会”，以及华盛顿特区规模盛大的独立日烟花秀。
去年，特朗普曾承诺，这场赛事将汇集“最优秀的高中运动员”。但如今看来，与其说这是一场展现体育竞技水平的赛事，不如说它更像是一场精心制作的青少年爱国主义展示活动。
CNN采访了五名“爱国者运动会”选手，并查看了上传至YouTube等平台的大量参赛申请视频，这些视频中，学生们展示了后空翻、跑酷训练等技能。
然而，运动能力并非入选赛事的唯一标准，入选选手似乎大多有着相似的背景。参赛者需要拍摄一段视频，回答一系列问题，包括为何想要参赛，以及体育如何塑造了他们的身份认同。根据申请要求，他们还需要列出在本州以外拥有“有意义的个人、家庭、文化、军事或社区联系”的地点。
申请者必须填写自己的生理性别。特朗普在去年宣布这项赛事时曾承诺，赛事中“不会有男性参加女子组比赛”。
参赛选手年龄在14至17岁之间，其中包括现役军人子女和JROTC（初级预备役军官训练团）学员，还有在家接受教育的学生。在“自由250”Instagram页面展示的孩子中，许多人就读于私立基督教学校。他们看起来也绝大多数是白人；赛事申请并未要求填写种族信息。
部分学生被选中代表他们并未居住的州。波多黎各的代表是一名来自德克萨斯州的年轻人。新泽西州的代表在德克萨斯州的一所私立基督教学校就读。马萨诸塞州的女选手、16岁的芭比·维克斯则在加利福尼亚州上学。
维克斯表示，她最初对自己不代表加州参赛感到惊讶。
“我被问到很多问题，比如‘你为什么代表马萨诸塞州，而不是你的家乡州？’”她告诉CNN，“但我觉得这真的很酷，因为我的很多家人都来自那里，而且我最喜欢的篮球队其实是波士顿凯尔特人队。”
赫尔曼说，她同时以亚利桑那州居民和切诺基族公民的身份申请了参赛。她表示，“自由250”的组织者进行了背景调查，并向切诺基族核实了她的成员身份。
在Instagram上发布的视频中，许多选手都宣扬了自己的基督教信仰，并亲自感谢特朗普给予的参赛机会，还有一些人发布了自己对篮球、长曲棍球或健身房举重等体育项目的兴趣。
一名代表北卡罗来纳州的选手是“美国俱乐部”当地分会的成员，该高中项目由已故活动家查理·柯克创立的“转向点美国”组织发起。在接受保守派YouTube博主亚当·弗朗西斯科的采访时，这名选手被问及WNBA球员索菲·坎宁安关于禁止跨性别女性参加女子体育赛事的言论。这段发布在Instagram上的视频配文写道：“高中生都明白的道理，左派为什么不懂？”
“自由250”的发言人丹妮尔·阿尔瓦雷斯在一份声明中称赞这场赛事是对“美国下一代领导者、竞争者和冠军”的庆祝。“‘自由250’很自豪能通过令人难忘的标志性活动将美国人团结在一起——从自由卡车游行、独立日庆祝活动到2026年爱国者运动会——这些活动庆祝我们的国家，并激励下一代。”
特朗普最早是在2023年竞选连任期间首次提及“爱国者运动会”。在一段竞选视频中，他概述了美国建国250周年的庆祝计划，并宣称“为高中运动员举办的大型体育赛事”将让来自“每个州的年轻人展示美国最优秀的技能、体育精神和竞争精神”。
体育在特朗普的第二任期内占据了重要地位。2025年，他成为首位亲自出席超级碗的在任总统，还曾现身NBA总决赛、美国网球公开赛、戴托纳500汽车赛以及世界杯决赛。特朗普还在推动华盛顿特区市中心的“自由250”印地赛车街赛计划中发挥了关键作用，该赛事将于本月晚些时候举办。
“我能想到的是，他比任何一位总统都更努力地试图将体育与他自身的形象绑定，”德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校体育传播与媒体中心主任迈克尔·L·巴特沃斯说道。
赛事将在俄亥俄州日内瓦的SPIRE学院举办，这是一所寄宿学校和体育训练设施，2016年曾举办过特朗普的竞选集会。根据“自由250”的Instagram账号，特朗普计划在周二出席赛事的决赛。这是政府支持的、旨在向美国年轻人推广爱国主义的两项活动之一——而这一群体对特朗普和美国的好感度已大幅下滑。根据2026年6月的盖洛普民调，仅有14%的18至34岁成年人表示“极度为自己是美国人而自豪”。
第一项活动是6月份的“总统1776奖”，高中年龄段的决赛选手需要回答有关美国历史和政府的问题，以争夺最高15万美元的奖学金。美国教育部上个月表示，该节目在CBS的直播收视人数达163万。
但该赛事随后陷入了争议。
来自康涅狄格州的15岁少年安加德·辛格的家人公开质疑比赛结果，他们上个月告诉NOTUS媒体，他们认为辛格的部分答案被误判，他本应成为三名获奖者之一。连同参众两院的民主党议员，他们已要求教育部提供更多关于评分的信息。
民主党参议员克里斯·墨菲上周发布了一段视频，他声称辛格——印度移民之子——被排除在获奖名单之外，目的是提拔更符合特朗普议程的选手。三名决赛选手均为白人，其中一名在接受CNN采访时自称是特朗普的支持者。
“你怎么解释这样的情况：一场基于你对美国历史了解程度的优材竞赛，却可能仅仅因为孩子的父母是移民，就剥夺他进入获奖圈的资格？”墨菲问道。
“爱国者运动会”的参赛者被告知，赛事将采用积分制，每轮比赛中成绩最好的运动员将获得最多积分。一些接受CNN采访的学生表示，他们对团体项目（如躲避球）的评分方式感到困惑。
“我不知道这会怎么运作，对我来说有点像赌博，”来自俄亥俄州的17岁利亚姆·尼斯说道，“没有两支队伍是实力相当的，所以真的要看你有没有抽到更强的队伍。”
在接受CNN采访时，尼斯表示，他是从“比宾斯奶奶”——Instagram网红阿莱塔·凯·迪迪埃那里听说这场赛事的，迪迪埃宣扬传统价值观，个人简介中称她希望“激励下一代母亲”。
来自俄勒冈州的塔图姆·帕尔默告诉CNN，她也是从迪迪埃那里得知这场赛事的，而密苏里州的麦迪逊·格莱斯表示，她是在空军基地的所有人都收到相关邮件后，由身为空军成员的母亲鼓励申请的。
尼斯的参赛申请内容之一是展示自己的后空翻能力——他每天都会做一个后空翻，并在Instagram上发布相关视频。他童年大部分时间都住在比利时，后来才回到美国读中学。
他说，小时候在比利时时，他对美国的印象是“到处都是牛仔和乡巴佬”。现在，“我对美国有了不同的看法，”尼斯说道，“我现在更能注意到我们在这里拥有的机会。”
上传至YouTube的数十份参赛申请视频展示了年轻人想要参赛的各种理由。一名南卡罗来纳州的申请者详细讲述了自己作为第四期癌症幸存者的经历，以及她对游泳和田径的热爱。一名纽约的田径和排球运动员表示，他希望为自己和双胞胎兄弟减轻大学学费负担。一名14岁少年穿着一件由柯克推广的黑色“自由”T恤，他表示参赛是为了“向所有人展示为什么俄克拉荷马州才是真正的红色州”。
对赫尔曼来说，这场赛事可以帮助她进入梦寐以求的学校：弗吉尼亚州林奇堡的福音派基督教学校自由大学。她希望在20岁前获得工商管理硕士学位。她的目标是有朝一日在政府工作——甚至可能当选公职，比如众议员或参议员。
“如果有可能的话，我很乐意成为总统，”她说。
CNN的戴维·林德为本报道贡献了内容。
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cnn-5-things/id1436719991
Trump’s Patriot Games are billed as a youth sports contest. They’re also a test of patriotic branding
2026-08-09T10:30:29.242Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/09/politics/patriot-games-trump-partisan-patriotic-branding
The premise sounds almost fictional: one boy and one girl from every state, territory and some tribal nations, flown to a private campus in Ohio to compete in a televised athletic contest called the Patriot Games — a Trump-backed youth competition with obstacle courses, patriotic testimonials and inevitable comparisons to The Hunger Games.
Except unlike the dystopian book and movie franchise where kids are pitted in a televised battle of survival, the stakes in the Patriot Games won’t be life and death. The male and female winners will each receive $125,000 in college scholarship money.
For 16-year-old Tylee Herrmann, the pitch was simple. In her video application, she gave her age, her school in Arizona and her reason for wanting to compete: she wanted to help “bring patriotism back to the US.”
“I feel like a lot of times right now, we feel disunified,” Herrmann, the Cherokee Nation representative, said in an interview with CNN. “I think we need something to bring us all together, because we’re the United States of America, and we need to be a little more united.”
However, Herrmann says she’s already experiencing how controversial the Patriot Games can be.
“There’s definitely been a number of people that just stopped talking to me,” said Herrmann, referring to her decision to compete in the games.
“I have a significant number of people that I know say that they hate the country because they hate the government,” Herrmann said, adding that “patriotism doesn’t belong to a political party.”
Hear more from the contestants on the latest episode ofCNN’s ‘One Thing’ podcast.
Streaming live over the weekend on ESPN with a primetime special airing on ABC Aug. 13, the Patriot Games are the latest example of the Trump administration elevating the politics of athleticism and toughness in celebration of America’s 250th birthday.
They come amid a long summer of spectacles put on by Freedom 250, the President Donald Trump-backed group that organized the UFC fight night on the White House lawn featuring a military flyover, plus the Great American State Fair on the National Mall and the immense July 4th fireworks display in Washington, DC.
Last year, Trump vowed that the games would feature “the greatest high school athletes.” However, the event appears to be shaping up to be more of a highly produced display of youth patriotism than athletic excellence.
CNN interviewed five Patriot Games competitors and reviewed numerous application videos posted online to YouTube and other platforms that showed students showing off skills such as backflips and parkour training.
Yet, athletic ability wasn’t the sole factor considered for participation in the competition, and those selected appear to have largely similar backgrounds. Contestants were asked to film a video answering a series of prompts about why they wanted to compete and to explain how sports have shaped their identity. They were also asked to list places outside their home state where they had a “meaningful personal, family, cultural, military, or community connection,” according to the application.
Applicants were required to list their biological sex. When announcing the games last year, Trump pledged that at the games, “there will be no men playing in women’s sports.”
Contestants ages 14 to 17 include children of active-duty military and JROTC participants, as well as homeschooled students. Of the kids featured in the Freedom 250 Instagram page, many attend private Christian schools. They also appear to be overwhelmingly White; the application for the Games did not ask to specify race.
Some students were chosen to represent states where they don’t reside. The pick for Puerto Rico is a young man from Texas. New Jersey’s ambassador attends a private Christian school in Texas. The female competitor for Massachusetts, 16-year-old Bobbi Vickers, attends school in California.
Vickers said she was initially surprised not to be representing California.
“I get a bunch of questions like, why are you representing Massachusetts and not your home state?” she told CNN. “But I think it’s really cool because a lot of my family is from there and my favorite basketball team is actually the Boston Celtics.”
Herrmann said she applied as both an Arizonan and as a citizen of the Cherokee tribe. She said the Freedom 250 organizers did a background check and verified with the Cherokee tribe that she’s a member.
In videos posted to Instagram, many of the competitors touted their Christian faith and thanked Trump personally for the opportunity, while others have posted about their interest in athletic pursuits like basketball, lacrosse or weightlifting at the gym.
One student representing North Carolina is a member of a local chapter of Club America, a high school program launched by Turning Point USA – the organization founded by the late activist Charlie Kirk. In an interview with conservative YouTube personality Adam Francisco, the student was asked about WNBA player Sophie Cunningham’s comments about barring transgender women from women’s sports. The video, posted to Instagram, was captioned, “High school athletes get it, why doesn’t the left?”
Freedom 250 spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez touted the games as a celebration of “America’s next generation of leaders, competitors and champions” in a statement. “Freedom 250 is proud to bring Americans together through unforgettable signature events — from the Freedom Trucks and July 4 celebrations to the 2026 Patriot Games — that celebrate our country and inspire the next generation.”
Trump first teased the Patriot Games during his bid for a second term in 2023. In a campaign video, he outlined plans for America’s 250th birthday and declared that “major sporting contests for high school athletes” would allow young people from “every state to show off the best of American skill, sportsmanship, and competitive spirit.”
Sports have featured heavily in Trump’s second term. He became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl in person in 2025, and has appeared at the NBA finals, US Open, Daytona 500, and the World Cup Final. Trump was also instrumental in expediting plans for the Freedom 250 IndyCar street race in downtown Washington, DC, later this month.
“He has done more than any president that I can think of to try to graft sports onto his own identity,” said Michael L. Butterworth, director of the Center for Sports Communication & Media at The University of Texas at Austin.
The games are set to take place at the SPIRE Academy, a boarding school and sports training facility in Geneva, Ohio, which hosted a Trump campaign rally in 2016. According to the Freedom 250 Instagram account, Trump plans on visiting the games’ finale on Tuesday. They are one of two contests backed by the administration aimed at promoting patriotism in young Americans – a demographic that has largely soured on Trump and the country. According to a June 2026 Gallup poll, just 14% of adults aged 18 to 34 said they were “extremely proud” to be an American.
The first contest was the Presidential 1776 Award in June, where high-school aged finalists answered questions about American history and government for a chance to win a scholarship worth up to $150,000. The broadcast drew 1.63 million live viewers on CBS, the Department of Education said last month.
But that contest has since become mired in controversy.
The family of Aangad Singh, a 15-year-old from Connecticut has publicly cast doubt on the results, telling NOTUS last month they believe some of his answers were incorrectly scored and that he should have been one of the three winners. Along with Democratic lawmakers from the House and Senate, they’ve asked the Education Department to provide more information about the scoring.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy released a video last week where he alleged that Singh, who is the son of Indian immigrants, was sidelined to uplift contestants who better aligned with Trump’s agenda. All three of the finalists were White, and one identified as a Trump supporter in an interview with CNN.
“How do you justify running a merit-based competition based upon how much you know about American history, and then denying a kid a place in the winner’s circle, perhaps simply because his parents are immigrants,” Murphy asked.
Competitors for the Patriot Games were told that there would be a points-based system, awarding athletes who finish with the best marks in each round the most. Some of the students who spoke to CNN expressed confusion about how individuals would be scored during the team events, such as dodgeball.
“I don’t know how that’s going to work, that’s kind of a gamble for me,” said 17-year-old Liam Nies from Ohio. “No two teams are equal, so it’s really if you get the better team or you don’t.”
In an interview with CNN, Nies said that he heard about the Patriot Games from “Granny Bibbins,” Instagram influencer Arleta Kay Didier, who promotes traditional values and says in her bio that she’s hoping to “inspire the next generation of Moms.”
Tatum Palmer from Oregon told CNN she also learned of the games from Didier, while Missouri’s Madison Glise said she was encouraged to apply by her mother, a member of the Air Force, after everyone at her military base received an email about them.
Part of Nies’s application was showing off his ability to do a backflip – he does one a day and posts a video on Instagram about it. He spent much of his childhood living in Belgium before moving back to the US for middle school.
He said his perception of America as a kid in Belgium was “big cowboys everywhere and just hillbillies.” Now, “I have a different view on America,” Nies said. “I think I’m just more noticeable of the opportunities that we have here.”
Dozens of video applications posted to YouTube show various reasons why young people wanted to participate. An applicant from South Carolina detailed her experience as a stage 4 cancer survivor and her love for swimming and track. A New York track and volleyball athlete said he wanted to ease college tuition costs for himself and his twin brother. A 14-year-old, wearing a black “Freedom” t-shirt popularized by Kirk, said he wanted to participate to “show everyone why Oklahoma is the real red state.”
For Herrmann, the games could help her go to her dream school: Liberty University, an evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia. She wants to get her master’s in business by the time she turns 20. Her goal is to work in government one day – maybe even an elected position like a congressman or a senator.
“If it happens, I would love to be the president,” she said.
CNN’s David Rind contributed to this report.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cnn-5-things/id1436719991
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