I have attempted to make the point that American sports and American politics are one and the same in numerous editions of this column, but I have never been able to sum it up quite as succinctly as the Twitter user who wrote “America is experiencing Knicks in 5 collectively right now” after the Democratic Party swept Tuesday night’s midterm elections by historic margins.
The commonalities between the two ‘arenas’ are well documented. There’s the linguistic side of it, in which candidates are known for ‘punching above their weight’ or being in a ‘dead heat.’ And now, in an era with inventions as beautiful and necessary for the good of humanity as Kalshi and Polymarket, you can bet on James Talarico winning a Senate seat and the Lakers beating the Kings in a single parlay.
Only in America.
No, really. There’s actually research on this subjectand it suggests that Western cultures — particularly the United States — prioritize sporting metaphors in political discourse because there is no other area even remotely as closely connected in terms of national pride, unity and societal engagement. Further, because both fields are historically male-dominated and competitive, they are not only analogous but also help explain why they continue to capture national attention. War, as I see it, is the meeting point between these two captivating subjects, and what gets the American public more fired up than that?
None of this is novel information, and I doubt it’ll come off as surprising to my astute readers. Look back to 1860, and you’ll find Lincoln’s campaign team describing him as a “run” and his competitors as “outs.” The more recent examples are too numerous to expound on here, but a personal favorite is Colin Powell giving this column a shoutout when he described America implementing a “full court press diplomatically, politically, militarily” just days after 9/11. (I do have to point out one difference in our uses of the term, though: My full court press hasn’t contributed to the denote of half a million Iraqisat least not that I’m aware of.)
So looking past the obvious, we may begin to speculate what the playbooks, if you will, might look like for both parties in the run-up to 2028. While I am by no stretch of the imagination a political theorist, it seems clear that Republicans will have to turn to playing defense. The first two years of Trump’s second term have been defined by aggression: tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China announced within days of inauguration; ICE agents terrorizing citizens; and — who could forget — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which didn’t even last long enough to see Messi reach a third World Cup final or Serena Williams return to the US Open. Now, the President will look to use the executive powers of the veto and executive orders, the most aggressive defensive options he has left, to combat a blue Congress and salvage whatever deplorable agenda items he can.
The Democrats, meanwhile, should look toward capitalizing on a rare stint of favorability and begin promoting their star players for 2028. Given that it’ll be hard to make any progress as long as Trump remains in power, it would serve the Democratic National Convention well to decide which candidates have the best shot in the next cycle and start making TikTok edits of them as soon as possible. I am not joking.
The political hype that’s followed Tuesday night’s results has been compared to the sentiment at the outset of the Obama campaign. Things look promising for Democrats. They just have to avoid proving the second NBA tweet I’ll quote in this piece: “Watching Schumer and Jeffries govern with power is going to be like watching the Pelicans play with a lead.”
Source: www.tuftsdaily.com
