Martina Longs for a Real Dictatorship

Tennis great Martina Navratilova says she would never have defected from Czechoslovakia as a teenager had she known Donald Trump would end up as President.

Well sure, and I would never have set my heart on following North Melbourne as a kid had I known the Kangas would win just 16 games between 2020 and 2024.

We all have regrets.

Navratilova defected to the US in 1975 over concerns that returning to her homeland meant giving up personal freedom while enduring constant surveillance.

After losing in the US Open semifinals, the then 18-year-old sought and gained political asylum - fleeing the tightly controlled communist state where phone calls were tapped, mail was read, and permits were required to travel from one district to another.

The fallout was immediate.

She was denounced by the Czechoslovak government, stripped of citizenship, and cut off from her family.

It’s fair to say she’s enjoyed a pretty good life since then.

But Navratilova now claims none of it was worth enduring the totalitarian regime of Donald J Trump.

She told the BBC …

"If I were now still in that same position [as in 1975] and I had to go live somewhere, it would not be America, because it's not a democracy at the moment.”

In Navratilova’s world, a former reality TV star tweeting mean things is equivalent - no, worse - than a Soviet-backed regime that crushed political dissent, imprisoned writers, and turned neighbour against neighbour through the state surveillance.

One wonders if Martina's memories of the old country are coloured by nostalgia for government cheese and standing in line for toilet paper.

Or perhaps she just really misses the soothing sound of …