The persecution (or not) of Danica

 Danica Patrick will not be part of Sky Sports' coverage of F1 racing this season, and this has predictably provoked the usual howling from the usual suspects from the usual darker corners of the American psyche.

In other words:  That segment of America that loves to pretend it's put-upon, belittled or -- let's go all the way out there -- flat-out persecuted thinks she got axed because of her politics. A victim of the woke hive-mind, as it were.

Yes, I know. It does get a trifle exhausting, this endless grievance mining.

That's especially so in this case, because not only does Danica insist leaving the coverage team was her choice -- maybe so; maybe not -- but her departure seems to be little more than one of those boring corporate deals. In other words, Apple TV is taking over the Sky F1 feed this season for American viewers, as well as the F1 in-house entity. It's one of those changes that usually does result in ... well, changes.

So, Danica is out, either by jumping or being pushed. How much of that had to do with her right-wing political tilt, however, is being grossly exaggerated or out-and-out fabricated by the aforementioned usual suspects.

Mind you, Patrick's political tilt has gotten increasingly more tilt-y as the years have gone by, to the extent that even Generalissimo Francisco Franco might find her a bit off-putting. Not only has she gone full MAGA, she's apparently gone full conspiracy kook, too, as often happens. You know, the whole moon-landing-was-faked, JFK-was-shot-by-the-re-animated-corpse-of-Marilyn-Monroe catechism.

Did that make her, well, somewhat polarizing to F1 viewers?

Perhaps.

Did the fact she wasn't terribly insightful as an F1 analyst, on account of she never turned a wheel in F1?

Even more perhaps.

This is no knock on Danica's overall skills as an analyst, mind you. Put her on the mic as an analyst at the Indianapolis 500, and she's got something to say that's worth hearing, given that she made seven starts there and finished in the top ten in six of those starts. At least at Indianapolis, she has as much insight as most of her broadcast partners.

Of course, admitting that would leave the grievance-miners nowhere to park their persecution complexes. So there's that.