Sports and politics have always existed at a very public intersection in the United States, but you would be hard-pressed to recall a time when the illusory firewall keeping them apart was more nakedly exposed.

Over the past year Trump has co-opted American sports as not merely a proxy battle in the culture wars that reflect a country’s deep divides but the primary theatre. It is fair to say there was no more influential sports figure this year than the president, whose bellicose rhetoric and crisp volume counterpunching have had far-reaching effects on the industry (ask Papa John’s) and compelled sports people, in a sharp break from the “Republicans buy sneakers, too” indifference of a previous generation, to speak on social issues with a frequency and ardour not seen since the high water mark of athlete activism of the 1960s, when champions such as Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul‑Jabbar risked their livelihoods to stand on the frontline of the civil rights movement.

At a September rally Trump nearly derailed an entire NFL season when he called football players “sons of bitches” for participating in Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police killings of black and brown people, taking credit for the league’s television ratings decline and mocking hard-won strides toward player safety by claiming the referees were doing too much to protect players.

Soon after he jousted with the NBA’s Stephen Curry and LeBron James over his decision to rescind the Golden State Warriors’ unaccepted invitation for the White House visit traditionally extended to championship-winning teams (eliciting perhaps the burn of the decade from James: “U bum”).

When ESPN’s Jemele Hill tweeted that Trump was “a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists” and “the most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime”, Trump clapped back first through the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who declared the comments “a fireable offense”, then doubled down with a name-check on Twitter pegged to Hill’s two-week suspension from the network. Sanders later backtracked, regretting “painting ESPN in an unfair light”. That further cast the Disney‑owned sports giant as an extreme liberal news source, a perception that continues to dog the network that is suffering from flagging subscription numbers.

Trump twice called out LaVar Ball, the father of a UCLA basketball player detained for shoplifting in China, as “ungrateful” for the president’s help in resolving the imbroglio, then he singled out the Oakland Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch for refusing to stand for the anthem (“Great disrespect!”), claiming the NFL should ban him for the season if he did it again.

Simply, it was the year the “stick to sports” myth was busted for good. But the issues facing those in the US marginalised by race and class were bound to bubble up and find expression in the mainstream channels of American life. It’s only a wonder it has not happened sooner.

The uptick in athlete activism did not begin with the emergence of Trumpism. Five years ago, the Miami Heat, led by James and Dwyane Wade, wore hoodies in a photograph disseminated on social media to protest against the killing of Trayvon Martin and many other athletes have embraced the unfiltered channel of social media to espouse their views.

But there’s no question the president – never more than at the infamous campaign stop in September for the Republican senator Luther Strange whose ripple effect months later is still being felt across the landscape – has poured gasoline on the fire.

Trump has always recognised sports as a cultural institution and inextricable stripe of American life. He owned a team in the upstart United States Football League in the early 1980s and hosted a series of major fights at his casino in Atlantic City before it went bankrupt, most notably the 1988 summit meeting between Mike Tyson and Michael Spinks, for which he paid a then-record $11m site fee.

The Trump Organization’s portfolio of golf courses around the world is well-documented. He actively courted athlete endorsements throughout his political rise, keenly aware of the power of sports people as influencers. It is only fitting his election has awakened that potential in ways not witnessed for years.

So what comes next? In six weeks the Winter Olympics kick off in the sleepy resort town of Pyeongchang, South Korea, clustered in the Taebaek Mountains – 50 miles from the demilitarized zone that has divided the Korean peninsula for more than six decades – against the backdrop of sabre-rattling between mercurial nuclear-armed leaders trading apocalyptic threats and fiery broadsides in increasingly unnerving 280-character increments. No chance of politics bleeding over there.

Lindsey Vonn, the most decorated female skier of all time and one of the faces of the US Olympic team, said she wants to “represent the people of the United States, not the president” and would turn down an invitation to the White House. “I take the Olympics very seriously and what they mean and what they represent, what walking under our flag means in the opening ceremony,” Vonn said. “I want to represent our country well. I don’t think that there are a lot of people currently in our government that do that.”

In short, welcome to the new normal. It may be unpleasant news for those who turn to sports as an escape from the toxicity of what passes for public discourse today, but if it starts difficult conversations that have been a long time deferred – which for all the window dressing was Kaepernick’s original goal – then it’s a small price to pay.