Radio Free America: How to lib out over sports

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Earlier this month, Nathaniel Frum offered a way for Democrats to win back men: with sports! In an amazing coincidence, he wrote this in The Atlantic, which is the same magazine where his father works. I wish I’d thought of that — this could’ve been The Hartford’s company newsletter!

The gist of his argument is that Democrats can show they’re big manly men by winning arguments with sports talk radio callers over whether Arch Manning can win a college championship. That’s right, as go Phyllis from Mulga and Incarcerated Bob, so go the nation.

Defector already did a great job fileting Frum the Younger’s inane arguments. I’d just add that, like most unsolicited Democratic comms advice, he’s telling them to do something that they’ve already done. Kamala Harris, whose loss inspired the Democratic Male Panic, talked about the Run-TMC Warriors on Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes’ podcast. Frum just seems to be flailing about trying to get Democrats to jack the “masculinity” sliders on candidates all the way up to 100. Which is how you get Graham Platner.

The suggestion is deeply superficial, which is too bad because sports actually give politicians plenty of opportunities to talk about their values. Just look at last week: 

The Knicks winning — Open the bars

It’s a rare and beautiful moment when you get to high five strangers on the street, but that’s exactly what New Yorkers got to experience when the Knicks won their first title in 53 years last Saturday night. It seemed like everyone in the city crowded to our nearest commercial strip where, as luck would have it, a lot of bars and restaurants had been playing games on projection screens and became natural places to gather for impromptu dance parties.

Now obviously, you can’t argue for policies dependent on your team winning a title every year. Nobody knows that more than Knicks fans. But, you should at least try to make it so bar and restaurant districts can more easily accommodate moments where people want to be together. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Knicks championship or a small-town high school winning a Class D playoff game, let the people have a little fun.

Unfortunately, Democrats don’t have a perfect track record on this issue. As I noted last week, a Democratic Assemblyman in Nevada lost a primary because he wanted to help craft breweries at the expense of a Republican-leaning labor union. Bars and restaurants are a notoriously low-margin business, and anything governments can do to make their lives easier, like making permits easier to get, should be a priority.

Democrats have a (somewhat deserved) reputation for being priggish and uptight. Offering policies that make it easier for people to get together and have a good time can help change that image.

U.S. Men’s Soccer Team (USMNT) victory — Blood and soil is stupid

The USMNT’s thrashing of Paraguay would’ve been a lot less convincing if it weren’t for birthright citizenship. Starting striker Folarin Balogun, who had half of the goals in the USMNT’s 4-1 win, was born here, but his parents are Nigerian and he grew up in England. So he is a citizen by dint of the 14th Amendment.

Indeed, the entire tournament seems to be a rebuke of blood and soil nationalism. Sweden’s top scorer refused to celebrate his goals against Tunisia because his father is from there. The French team so self-consciously represents the multiethnic state that Kylian Mbappé is willing to speak out against the country’s far right. Even Japan has a goaltender from Arkansas!

Of course, that’s not to say that USMNT is ready to start phonebanking for AOC. Star Christian Pulisic is a registered Republican who did the Trump dance in November 2024. That’s life. There are 77 million Donald Trump voters out there, and at least a few of them are going to be really good at soccer. But if Pulisic can coexist with teammates who probably disagree with him on many things, there’s hope for the rest of us.

It’s corny, but it’s true: Team sports can force people with opposing views and differing life experiences to at least find some common ground. Which means that trying to keep youth sports affordable should be a plank in the pro-fun platform. And it also means ignoring the quadrennial left-wing moaning about imperialism and cheering for the boys in red and white stripes (the USMNT, not Southampton).

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world (and, increasingly, the U.S., as I’ve seen far more grade schoolers in Messi jerseys than any other athlete), so let Trump and MAGA have individual niche leagues like the UFC and PGA. We can lib out over diversity being a strength in the sports people care about.

Stanley Cup Final – Owners suck

I was there, Section 301, Row B, Seat 12

The vile Carolina Hurricanes won their second Stanley Cup title, which means championship banners have been stolen from the good people of Hartford. That’s right, as with many other sons of actuaries at The Hartford, I was at their final game. Like Bernie Sanders, my hometown team moving was a formative experience in my life. And like Bernie Sanders, I want them to pay for what they’ve done.

Sadly, the billionaires have come up with a pretty sweet way to get their stadiums paid for: pitting various states and cities against each other with threats to move. That’s besides the fact that these stadium deals seem to never work out for local governments. The loss of the Browns in the ‘90s still stings so bad in Cleveland that the Ohio Legislature gave the new franchise $600 million to not leave again. Meanwhile, Indiana and Kansas taxpayers are likely getting soaked because they live across the border from more fiscally responsible states.

This is an issue that has to be addressed at the federal level, and it’s time for Democrats to start kicking solutions around. At the very least, they can follow Tammy Baldwin’s lead and make them cheaper to watch on TV.

I’ve posted online about sports for more than 20 years. So I know what I’m talking about when I say that telling people you cheer for the same teams and players as them won’t mean anything. But they’ll like you if you make following sports a better time. Whether that’s through making it easier to watch them at a bar, cheaper to watch them at home or making it easier to get the most exciting players on your team, show that your values align with theirs.

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AROUND AMERICA

• Speaking of sports, Georgia held its runoff elections on Tuesday, and former football coach and gubernatorial candidate Derek Dooley continued his streak of finishing below .500. And Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones’s loss in the gubernatorial runoff seemed to kill the momentum for right wing state lawmakers to re-gerrymander congressional districts this year. Further downballot:
  • Former state Sen. Nabilah Parkes lost the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor to current state Sen. Josh McLaurin, who’s the reason why we know that JD Vance called Trump “America’s Hitler.” 
  • Parkes ran for LG after switching from the insurance commissioner race at the last minute, which is looking like a huge mistake. The Democrats’ nominee for the office will now be someone who lost elections in 2017, 2018, 2020, 2024 and 2025. And as we read about last week, everyone smarter than Spencer Pratt and the writers at the Free Press know how important the insurance commissioner is!
  • And Democrats nearly lost Parkes’ old state Senate seat in a special election held on the same date as the runoff because Republican turnout for it (where they had two marquee races up for grabs) was twice as high as Democratic turnout. But they managed to narrowly hold on, which means Republicans haven’t flipped a single state legislative seat in a special election since Trump was inaugurated for the second time.
• Oklahoma also had its primary on Tuesday, and perhaps the best news coming out of the Sooner State is that state Sen. Dusty Deevers, perhaps the most right-wing state lawmaker in the country, lost his renomination fight. But it doesn’t seem like it’s because Republican primary voters have repudiated his views. It’s more likely that leadership found him annoying and spent a lot of money trying to beat him.

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INTERNET STUFF I LIKED THIS WEEK

After MCA died, Mike D said his late bandmate would want him and Ad Rock to “try whatever crazy thing we wanted but never got around to.” I’d like to think that applied to his fans as well, because one of them did a stop animation version of the Sabotage video. All I can say about it is that you should ch-check it out.

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BOOK CLUB

I get it if you don’t want to relive the 2024 election. But Elizabeth Strout’s latest does a fantastic job of capturing what life was like at the time. At the very least, “The Things We Never Say” will make you feel a little less insane by properly capturing the pervasive anomie of the moment. Sometimes, it can be as subtle as a sledgehammer. But when the president demands guys beat themselves into a bloody pulp in front of him on his birthday, it’s OK to be a little blunt.

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HELP US OUT

Thanks to everyone for your Japanese sunscreen recommendations. It seems like a lot of people like Supergoop, even if the name should give one pause.

As for this week, let’s help our foreign friends out. The New York Times had an amusing trend piece about the quotidian places Europeans are visiting to marvel at our prosperous society. It’s reminiscent of Stephen Fry in America. So what should they put on their itineraries? Personally, I think the European mind would be unable to comprehend all of the flavors on the Buffalo Wild Wings menu. Email me your thoughts.

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