John Duggan writes that the horse race nature of US politics is as tribal as any derby match, across any sport, worldwide...
How many of you are going to stay up into the early hours of next Wednesday morning? How many of you have taken next Wednesday off!
You can't ignore it, even if you are as exhausted by Donald Trump as many an American citizen is. It's on your phone, it's on your television screen, it's on the front page of your newspaper. Trump versus Joe Biden. For the Presidency of the United States.
I've just finished reading a fine book called 'The Club' about the history of the Premier League and it's clear what the secret of this global brand is. Competitiveness. On any given day, any of the twenty clubs can defeat another club. The depth of the competition enthralls viewers from Newcastle to New York, from Manchester to Melbourne. Overseas television rights in the last deal were sold for £4.35 billion pounds. That's a staggering success story, built on the quality of the product, because of the heritage of English football, but also because it consistently engages. It also conjures tales straight from the Disney playbook, such as Leicester City.
When one thinks of Liverpool v Manchester United, or Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur, or Celtic v Rangers, or AC Milan v Inter, or Boca Juniors v River Plate, or Real Madrid v Barcelona, or Galatasaray v Fenerbahce around the globe, the common denominator is emotion. The tribal passion of supporters is a core part of their identity. This joy thieving pandemic has robbed that sense of sporting tribe.
I regularly visit a graveyard in South County Dublin where my father and best friend are buried, co-incidentally, seven rows apart. In this peaceful place, between mountains and sea, I always marvel at the headstones dedicated to loved ones which commemorate their support of a football club. It just seems to be football - I have seen Chelsea and Leeds United inscribed, but I haven't glimpsed the Dubs or Leinster.
The words catch your eye on the granite memorial - "You'll Never Walk Alone" - and you try to imagine who this person was. There is something beautifully poignant about it all. Their love for their club immortalised as part of the texture of their life.
The top ten television programmes in the ratings in Ireland for the year are almost always headed by the 'Late Late Toy Show', but the next six last year were all related to sport. The All Ireland football final replay between Dublin and Kerry came in second with 991,000 viewers. It's a different shade of compelling to association football, more national occasion, more neutral, but no less interesting. Once again, it engages, it stirs the conversation around the office, and in normal times, down the town and in the pub.
So I was fascinated to learn what the top rated US TV shows have been this year. In the top 10, six were sport, topped by the Super Bowl at 99 million, but followed by the first debate between Trump and Biden, which was viewed by 73 million. The final nights of the Democratic and Republican conventions were watched by more people than the Academy Awards. It's American Football and Politics this year and the rest trailing home.
One can understand American Football; it's their national pastime. But Politics ahead of everything else? It just shows how tribal it has become, stoked by a media industrial complex that saw $6.3 billion spent on political advertising in the 2016 campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. That figure is bound to be smashed this year. It's in every US media company's interest from a profit point of view to have a horse race, so the WWE nature of Trump this decade - the 'Kardashian-ization' of politics - is an inevitable conclusion of sorts. The hyper drama, the freak show - is every media owner's dream.
The Reality Show nature of US Politics has turned the two parties, the Democrats and Republicans, into sports teams. Blue and Red. Entrenched. It's like Liverpool v Manchester United, and base fans aren't going to switch teams. Partisan channels such as Fox News and MSNBC accelerated this trend over the last quarter of a century and then Trump became the King Kong of the news cycle, turning Americans, and by extension the world into rubberneckers of his next move. It's all based on identity politics; us and them. Yard signs. Most Americans don't talk about Politics with their friends, because it can get heated.
The Trump show is damaging for America, and it's become tired. Trump's shock victory over Clinton in sporting terms is set to finish, according to the polls, four years after winning the game, in a resounding defeat. If you don't believe that it's sport, then think about it - in 1976 a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, won Tennessee, while Gerald Ford, a Republican, won New Jersey. It was Queensbury Rules, back then, civil. It's unthinkable that those states would go to those parties now, because as part of the tribe, at the base level, you are either Blue or Red.
Even James Baker, the man who 'ran' Washington, as Ronald Reagan's Chief of Staff and George HW Bush's Secretary of State, and who called Trump 'nuts', couldn't vote for a Democrat. Trump's outrageousness and mishandling of the pandemic are the only things eroding the solidity of the Red wall of voters.
The new US Supreme Court Justice, Amy Coney Barrett, didn't receive one nonpartisan vote in her confirmation this week, the first time that has happened to a Justice since 1869. The horror of Trump is set to turn the air Blue next week if Biden wins. If he does and Trump disputes it, what happens then, a conflagration, like a riot on a pitch? One side is going to be bitterly disappointed.
Even if Donald Trump goes quietly, it's soon going to be Blue v Red again. Partisan. Divided. Money driven. Relentless. Inflaming emotion. Almost like elite professional sport. There may be one difference. At least elite sport still has its sanity. The way American society functions and the future direction of the world is not at stake. Sports teams know that when the whistle stops, the game is over for now. Americans could learn a thing or two from that, to treat their addiction. It can't be good for the soul.
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