This, we are told, is the age of tribal hatreds and nationalist fervor, the time when old monsters — antisemitic, protectionist, authoritarian cults — stalk the land. Social media crackles with race war and reactionary rage. The country is so deeply polarized that the 250th Anniversary unites no one. Half the White House is in literal ruins, and algae blooms fill the unreflecting pool.
And in the middle of this humid, oppressive gloom? An unexpected, fresh burst of globalized joy, a spasm of multiracial harmony, and the real shocker: a broad, genuine outburst of love for this country, its big-hearted people, and its unsung prosperity. No one expected the World Cup to be much of a draw this year, and many were afraid it would be an almighty flop, given the global atmosphere and you-know-who. But here we are. It’s the one obvious, uplifting, positive thing going on, and it feels like a fucking tonic.
Maybe part of it is the fact that the tournament has vastly expanded to 48 countries from 32, bringing over a dozen teams into the contest for the first time. So many were just so psyched to be playing at all that even the defeats were victories. As the Moroccans defeated the Scots in Boston, you could feel the Scottish supporters shifting their fandom to Morocco for the rest of the World Cup, another plucky underdog from halfway round the world.
And you don’t have to be a soccer fan to get a lump in your throat watching a stadium full of cheering Colombians go suddenly quiet as a single Congo fan sings his country’s national anthem, and then give him a rousing cheer at the end. Or to marvel at the sea of orange-clad Dutchmen filling out the unlikely streets of Kansas City one summer afternoon; or love the Norwegians’ signature collective “row” — as the fans mimic Vikings in vast stadiums across the American heartland, and even on the NYC subway.
And then the more truly global moments, as an Iraqi chants alongside a Scot playing the bagpipes; or a crowd of Mexicans good-naturedly throws a lone Korean fan up and down in the air; or the scene in Seattle of all places, with a giant party thrown by fans of Bosnia-Herzegovina and, yes, Qatar.
The Scots, of course, stole the show wherever they went — and I saw why when I passed through Boston last week. The kilts wowed the women (and a few men); the beer flowed pathologically; and large throngs of shit-faced Scottish males somehow never turned violent for the first time in recorded history. “No Scotland, No Party” became Boston’s unofficial anthem for a week or so, and for reasons I still don’t quite grasp, the Scots’ main extracurricular activity was finding bright-orange traffic cones and putting them on their heads — or anything else nearby that was available. Good times. Boston misses them already, especially the bar owners.
And then the real America showed up. Not the psycho president, but the American people. A small-town sheriff in Texas helped a group of Swedes in a broken-down RV, and another Texan invited fans from France and Poland to his 30-acre property for a cowboy tour. Zoom in on Lawrence, Kansas, where 300 Americans waited in the rain for hours in the night to cheer the arrival of the Algerian team. This is America:
Lawrence and the University of Kansas have welcomed the Algerian team and its fans with cheers of “Rock Chalk Algeria” [the KU chant is usually “Rock Chalk Jayhawk”]. Lawrence-based artist Stan Herd created earthwork art of the Algerian flag. What really put it over the top for me was learning that a KU band learned the Algerian national anthem, “Kassaman,” to play at the national team’s open practice last Thursday.
And it’s always a joy when Europeans express the same amazement I felt all those decades ago as I first discovered this wonderland. “Everyone’s just so nice,” said one, which is what every relative who has ever visited me always says about America. Always. The openness and friendliness, the mind-bending hospitality: it’s a truly new world. In one video, a Frenchman at Costco says, “No less than 20 people have stopped and said ‘Hi’. I do not understand this ‘Hi’. ... We don’t have any guns in France, but if you did that in France, you would get shot.”
Then you have Buc-ee’s, air-conditioning, barbecue chicken, gigantic Walmarts and Starbucks, endless Taco Bells and 7-11 Big Gulps, Motel 6s, giant flags everywhere, and the sheer bounty of delicious, cheap food:
They are reacting to Beaver Nuggets, to the free refill tradition, to the experience of walking into a Waffle House at 1 a.m. and receiving great food, great prices, and friendly staff in that particular order. They are reacting to ranch dressing with the urgency of people who have discovered something that should have been available to them their entire lives and wasn’t.
If you think the American way of life is ending, you should listen to some of these star-struck visitors. “Indiana is exactly how I dreamed America would be. Small towns, wide open spaces, cornfields, barns, cute houses, diners, water towers, friendly people, great food, American flags everywhere, and so much more!” said one Swede, who’d also been won over by Ranch dressing (a true revelation). By getting peeps to go to the heartland for matches in various stadiums, rather than the usual coastal tourist fare, the World Cup is actually giving a more representative picture of the entire country — and it’s a huge hit, arguably the biggest PR victory for America since Obama’s first election.
Of course it is. Get off social media and see the real America: pragmatic, fun, chill. And I think the extreme bonhomie of this competition so far is partly because of America as well. This place is relatively fresh for soccer — and so its territory is not staked out like, say, Germany or Argentina or England. Everyone is at an away game here. And then America is itself a stupendous achievement of multicultural energy and fun — the perfect host for a multiracial global contest.
I saw it last week. My Scots-filled train to New York just happened to collide with the Knicks’ parade in Manhattan, and all at once the parallels were clear. Every race and religion, every language and accent, every new immigrant and Mayflower descendant, every cantankerous and ornery NYC tribe somehow united for a while in post-racial, post-tribal euphoria, where the only tribe that mattered was the tribe of all tribes: the Knicks.
Sports can do this at their best: harness harmless, low-level tribalism to defang risky, high-level tribalism, using human nature to counter human nature. And this World Cup shows not only that there is nothing inevitable about deepening ethnic, religious, and national divides, but that with the right moment and the right inspiration, the human spirit can both channel and transcend them. Spectacularly.
We are deeply, ineradicably tribal creatures, but we can look up from that if we choose, to something less zero-sum. We can choose to be more curious about and enchanted by others, to be fascinated by difference rather than so afraid of it. And there is no more appropriate stage for that confluence of different humanities than here, in America, even now, in this fearful, demagogic age of unnervingly rapid change.
We forget too easily the multicultural miracle we have already achieved in this quarter of a millennium, and the loving, generous, bountiful culture that is still America at its core. If it takes a soccer tournament rather than a choreographed 250th Anniversary celebration to remind us of that, so be it. We’re worth celebrating nonetheless.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a chat with Bob Wright about AI and evolution; reader dissents over my latest piece on the war; eight notable quotes from the week in news; 19 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break of Cartman serenading you guys; a religious window from NYC; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a new paid subscriber:
I’ve been reading the free version for the past few weeks, landing here due to Nick Cave mentioning the Dish in the Red Hand Files. Truly independent writing, and I like that I’m reading views I wouldn’t typically like to hear — i.e. out of my echo chamber. Views too, such as on Israel and the Middle East, that are fair and fearless. The promise of accessing the full episode with John Gray also won me over.
He’s coming back on the pod next week.
Email Of The Week
A Haitian-American reader sends the above photo and writes:
I have wonderful memories from the Haiti-Scotland match and how warm the fans were with one another — before, during, AND after the game. The Scots approached my family to ask us to take a picture with them, and they also joined us in merriment offering Scottish drinks in exchange for Haitian rum. And we had some hilarious moments of kilts jumping around to Haitian tailgate percussions.
My paternal great-grandpa was actually Scottish, so the football face-off was literally cross-culturally represented by my lineage. The Scots loved it; they were like, “We’re cousins!”
Particularly poignant given the imminent mass deportation of many Haitians admitted under Temporary Protected Status. If you have your own cross-cultural memory from the World Cup, please send it our way: dish@andrewsullivan.com. We want to keep spreading the love.
Back On The Dishcast: Robert Wright
Bob is a journalist and the author of many books, including The Moral Animal, Nonzero, The Evolution of God, and Why Buddhism Is True. He’s written for countless magazines, including The New Republic, where he co-wrote the TRB column with Mickey Kaus. They also co-founded Bloggingheads TV, and Bob taught in the psych department at Penn and the religion department at Princeton. Today you can find him on Substack at the NonZero Newsletter, and his new book is The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning. It’s a doozy of an introduction to the subject — with all of Bob’s signature clarity, wit, and sense of moral purpose.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — how AI flatters its users, and the rapidly converging threats from AI. That link also takes you to commentary on last week’s pod on privacy in a liberal democracy, and readers discuss AI, Iran, birth rates, and the LBG/TQ+ divide.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: John Gray on Trump’s new world, Stephen Grosz on the struggles of love, David Thomson on cinema history, John O’Sullivan on conservatism, Robby George on all our disagreements, and Megan McArdle on pretty much anything. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as the socialist wave coming out of NYC, Keir’s replacement at No. 10, and Down syndrome abortions. Examples:
The murder of modern-day “witches” is often economic.
Jennie Rothenberg Gritz tells us what the first yoga retreats were like in 1890s.
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday at 11.59 pm (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription. Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. From an entry in last week’s contest:
But the question remains: how did the Inca get these stones to Sacsayhuamán and then place them so precisely — and all without the wheel? The short answer is: who knows?
Well, archaeologists have many competing theories, including moving the rocks on tree trunks or a sled of some kind — all pulled by human muscle. It’s also possible some of the larger boulders were already there when the Inca arrived, and they fitted smaller stones around them. As for the precise fit, carving each stone must have taken substantial time and grueling labor — another sign of the power of Inca rulers. It was also quite a feat to place the finished stones, including on top of one another. Did they use timber scaffolding? Did workers construct earthen ramps to place the boulders and then remove the soil afterwards?
Modern experiments in Peru with quarrying, transporting, and placing stones have yielded inconclusive results, meaning that until we invent a time machine, the secret behind Sacsayhuamán’s engineering will likely remain a mystery. It’s no wonder that a lot of people reach for outlandish theories about its construction, including, of course, ancient aliens. Interestingly, Andean folklore had a fascination with giants, with a few tales linking these colossal figures to the site’s construction:
So we started with tiny bulls on a rooftop and ended with giants — that’s quite a journey this week!
