I would say that this particular case is not politics, but the normal behavior of people. What do you know about Karjakin as a racing driver or snooker player? I think nothing. Karjakin is a representative of the chess community. He has an opinion - no one takes away his opinion from him, but since he represents the entire chess community, this community does not want to be associated with him and therefore does not want to "play" with him while he makes statements that cast a shadow on the entire community.
I think if you have a good opponent in your neighborhood to play chess or whatever, but one day you find out that he is a pedophile, then most likely you will stop playing with him, right? Although it seems like his sexual deviations have nothing to do with chess and "these are different issues."
as much as I hate wars and think they're stupid and a waste/delay for human civilization, I don't think that we can compare individuals who support the war to pedophiles
former have an opinion about something
latter have a serious conduct deviation and are criminals/ill
but still, take my opinion about Karjakin with a grain of salt since I didn't follow the full situation and just checked the article quite fast...
Okay, let's take out the pedophiles and replace them with war criminals and those who support them. Will you play with a neighbor who is a good chess player if he is a war criminal? Or with the same neighbor who is not a war criminal but who openly supports war crimes (or denies their actual existence when it is clear to everyone that they are taking place)?
I just don't like cancelation culture and think people end up mixing up things that doesn't make sense at all.
If people commit crimes they should be punished/go to jail/whatever, this is common ground.
Being a pedophile is disgusting and a crime (when they act,
pedophilia, rape and any kind of sexual violence are crimes and horrible things but we can't put people in jail for crimes of thought like only thinking of something, as disgusting as their thoughts can be)
that said, I think people in prison for commiting crimes can still be brilliant on their skills like chess, for example.
so all I said is that imo makes no sense to forbid a player who supports war (or supports something else that I'm against) to play chess, since their opinions on wars, politics or religion won't affect their skill.
of course it's easier to frame people who disagree with us as horrible people, but I think there's nuance, there's a gradient of things to consider on people's personalities
to make the discourse more extreme: remove nuance.
It'll probably get worse from here in terms of public opinion, mass media manipulation and xenophobia...
here's a tl;dr:
War is horrible and stupid
there's people who support it
I don't support them
but I think horrible and stupid people should be allowed to play chess (and get good at it)
hopefully learning and playing chess will even help to make them less horrible and stupid