Thoughts for the Day, February 9, 2026: Understanding Lindsey Vonn. Was it a racist post? The appeal of Trump to Evangelical Christians

Lindsey Vonn

Lindsey Vonn, like so many athletes who are generational performers, is driven in ways that people like me do not understand. Athletes, like Vonn, who have achieved world class greatness and world class status but continue to perform when they are well past their prime. Vonn is not alone. We saw it in Tiger Woods. We saw it in Michael Jordan. We saw it in Miguel Cabrera. We saw it in Tom Brady. We are currently seeing it in Justin Verlander, Aaron Rogers, and Max Scherzer.

I had many discussions today about why Vonn was allowed to participate in yesterday’s Olympic downhill, knowing she had torn her ACL two weeks ago. Why didn’t doctors prevent it from happening?

After seeing videos of her crash yesterday in which she suffered serious injuries and had to be airlifted to a local hospital, I wish someone would have told her no, it wasn’t safe. I wish someone had told her she has accomplished enough and she has nothing more to prove.

However. after reading her response from her hospital bed, I don’t think anything was going to stop her. Athletes like Vonn are driven beyond normal human comprehension. This is my Quote of the Day.

lindseyvonn

Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would. It wasn’t a story book ending or a fairy tail, it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it. Because in Downhill ski racing the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as 5 inches.

I was simply 5 inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulted in my crash. My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever.

Unfortunately, I sustained a complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly.

While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets. Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget. Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself. I also knew that racing was a risk. It always was and always will be an incredibly dangerous sport.

And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is the also the beauty of life; we can try.

I tried. I dreamt. I jumped.

I hope if you take away anything from my journey it’s that you all have the courage to dare greatly. Life is too short not to take chances on yourself. Because the only failure in life is not trying.

I believe in you, just as you believed in me.

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Follow-up

In the February 5, Thoughts for the Day, I asked the following question to CHAT GPT.

The current administration continues to receive strong support from many Evangelical Christians. If Jesus were alive today, how would Jesus evaluate our political leaders today? A copy of the entire blog is available in this link: (3) Thoughts for the Day, February 5, 2026: I am going out on a limb like never before by asking a tough question. What Would Jesus Think About Today’s Politics?

Coincidentally to my writing the above blog, on February 6, 2026, Peter Wehner, of The Atlantic wrote an article explaining why Evangelical Christians are so supportive of Donald Trump. Here are excerpts from the article.

It is testimony to the marketing genius of Donald Trump that he never sold himself to Christians as one of them—pious, devoted, merciful, forgiving, irenic, biblically literate, a faithful husband and father, a man of high moral standards. Instead, he sold himself as their protector. He didn’t hide his cruelty or his belief that the ends justify the means; doing so would have been impossible for him because they are central features of his personality. So, he did the opposite: He presented himself to Christians as a fierce, even ruthless, warrior on their behalf. It worked. He built a huge, loyal, fanatical following.

At the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2026, Trump recounted comments made about him by Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas and a stalwart Trump ally for a decade.

According to Trump, the case Jeffress made on his behalf in 2016 went like this: “He may not have ever read the Bible, but he will be a much stronger messenger for us.” It was Jeffress who said at the time, “I want the meanest, toughest SOB I can find to protect this nation.”

Jerry Falwell Jr., then the president of Liberty University, put it this way in a 2018 tweet: “Conservatives & Christians need to stop electing ‘nice guys’. They might make great Christian leaders but the US needs street fighters like @realDonaldTrump at every level of government b/c the liberal fascists Dems are playing for keeps & many Repub leaders are a bunch of wimps!”

Tony Perkins, an ordained Southern Baptist minister and the president of the Family Research Council, a prominent evangelical activist group, admitted in 2018 that he and other evangelicals gave Trump a “mulligan” on his multiple affairs and hush-money payments to a porn star for a simple reason: Evangelicals “were tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists. And I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.” When asked what happened to turning the other cheek, Perkins replied, “You know, you only have two cheeks. Look, Christianity is not all about being a welcome mat which people can just stomp their feet on.”

Much of today’s evangelical world sees Trump’s viciousness not as a vice but as a virtue, so long as it is employed against those they perceive as their enemies, against those whom they resent and for whom they have a seething hatred. Unless you’ve spent time in the evangelical world, fully appreciating the level of antipathy that exists toward Democrats and progressives is difficult. The only thing that exceeds it is the loathing reserved for the Christians and conservatives who broke with Trump because their commitment to their faith, and to cherished moral truths, required them to speak out against him.

In successive blogs, I have learned why the teaching of Jesus and Evangelical Christians have such opposing views of the policies and practices of the Trump administration.

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He is making Nixon look like a saint.

Late Friday morning I was talking to some close friends, who are subscribers to my blog. They were telling me about Trump’s post Thursday evening on Truth Social in which he overlayed the Obamas’ faces on monkeys. When I finished talking to them, I immediately tried to find it, but it had been taken down so it was no longer available. After doing some research, I found the original video from posting on X in October that included not just the Obamas, but many other Democrats whose faces had been superimposed on animals who then bowed down to Trump as he walked by with his face on a lion, implying that Trump was the King of the Jungle and that the Dems were having to bow down to him.

When I read, that Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, said that the post was made in error by a staffer and it was not Trump who posted it, I pushed the posting into the background, and I got on with my day. Toward evening, I kept going back to 2008 when Obama was elected president and I received terrible racist emails from acquaintances who opposed Obama. The feeling that Trump deliberately posted the video on Truth Social as a racist statement was taking hold with me and that Karoline Leavitt was covering for Trump.

Late Friday night, I received a text from a very close friend who was particularly upset about Trump’s post. My friend said he didn’t know why this one was bothering him so much since he understands who Trump is, but this post had gotten to him. My friend asked me to pray for him. I did.

On Saturday, I talked to another friend about Trump’s post. He was surprised I didn’t see the post for what it was. He told me it was Trump’s way of recognizing Black History Month. In the old days of the KKK, black people were referred to as “Jungle Bunnies” and Trump used the image to play to his racist base of followers. At this point, I was angry.

On Sunday, Trump admitted he was the one who posted it, and he was not going to apologize for the post.

This gets to my Question of the Day: How does Trump’s post fit into the teachings of Jesus?

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Contact your Congressperson

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Step 6: Fill out the information as required.

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Quote of the Day: See the above from Lindey Vonn

Orchid of the Day: Seatle Seahawks for one of the most dominant defensive performances in the history of the Super Bowl. It was clear that New England had no answers for Seatle’s defense.

Onion of the Day: The New England’s offensive game plan. They had two weeks to prepare for the game, yet they had no answers to anything the Seahawks defense did.

Question of the Day: How does Trump’s post fit into the teachings of Jesus?

Lyrics of the Day:

I’ll light the fire
You place the flowers in the vase
That you bought today

Staring at the fire
For hours and hours while I listen to you
Play your love songs all night long for me
Only for me

Hint: They could harmonize with the best of them.

If you know the answer, please feel free to use the comment section of the blog to respond.

Lyrics of the Day for February 5, 2026. One Shining Moment by Ann Arbor’s own David Barrett. It was written in a bar in East Lansing after watching Larry Bird in 1986. Since 1987 it has been played at the end of every NCAA Men’s basketball championship as part of a montage of highlights of the tournament while the championship team is cutting down the nets.

Video of the Day: Johnson wins downhill for first U.S. gold of Milan Cortina

I write reflective, opinionated essays on leadership, politics, sports, and life—grounded in experience rather than ideology. If this perspective resonates with you, you can subscribe here for free.