Politics
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Billie Eilish, who’s been a fierce critic of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration in the U.S., is taking to the Grammys stage to urge the public to “keep fighting” and “protesting.” “As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything…
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Ah, Belgium. The country of fries, chocolate, Kevin De Bruyne and, some might say, chronic political division.
Beyond Brussels, a mighty international melting pot, the country is split between Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-speaking Wallonia and a small German-speaking community. Those linguistic divisions are mirrored in its politics: Belgium has separate party systems on either side of the language border, as well as a highly devolved federal structure that gives significant powers to its regions.
Today, Belgian politics is as fragmented as ever. It took 234 days to form a federal government after the June 2024 election (yes, you read that right). The delay was driven largely by the fact that no camp came close to winning a majority, forcing months of negotiations between parties with sharply different ideological and linguistic bases.
Flemish nationalism has also become a growing force, shaped by two right-wing nationalist parties: the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), which wants to transform Belgium into a looser confederal state and ultimately give Flanders far greater autonomy, and the far-right Vlaams Belang, which openly campaigns for Flemish independence.
So, you might think the 2026 World Cup would offer Belgium’s leader a rare opportunity to rally and unify the country behind a shared national symbol, right?
Wrong.
Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who hails from the N-VA party, has expressed almost no public support for the Red Devils, Belgium’s national soccer team.
That contrasts with leaders in nearby countries that also qualified for the World Cup. The leaders of the Netherlands, Germany and France have all publicly backed their squads, whether on social media or through public appearances.
The reason may be simple: De Wever just doesn’t care for the sport.
A Belgian official told Blue Light News: “The prime minister is not a soccer fan, so he doesn’t seek to project that image publicly. To do otherwise would not be authentic.”
Flemish media have indeed reported that the prime minister has little interest in soccer. In a podcast appearance a few years ago, he said the sight of people “going totally crazy in a group in the stands” left him feeling “ice cold.”
But politics is likely part of the story too. De Wever has led the Flemish nationalist N-VA since 2004. Throughout his political career, he has argued that Flanders should have far greater autonomy and that Belgium should evolve into a confederal state. For a politician with that background, overt displays of Belgian national unity probably don’t come naturally, and in fact contradict emphasis on Flemish autonomy.
This is not the first time the N-VA’s relationship with the Red Devils has attracted attention. In 2015, after Belgium reached No. 1 in the FIFA world rankings, Francophone Socialist Party leader Laurette Onkelinx asked the Chamber of Representatives to applaud the team. All parties joined in, except the N-VA.
During Euro 2016, the N-VA had to deny it instructed ministers and MPs to avoid publicly celebrating the Red Devils so as not to appear too Belgian, after rumors circulated in Belgian media.
One of De Wever’s few comments about this year’s World Cup concerned Belgium’s official tournament song. His complaint: It did not contain a single word of Dutch.
“My staff have confirmed to me that not a single word is sung in Dutch. That is, to put it mildly, not elegant,” he said, in keeping with his ideologies of promoting Flanders, when asked about the song during a parliamentary committee hearing.
Sport is often treated as a vehicle for national unity. In New Zealand, Belgium’s opponent in today’s match, elite teams have successfully woven elements of Māori culture into their sporting traditions, most famously through the prematch haka, which has helped create a shared cultural identity that connects Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders.
In Belgium, however, this World Cup has not yet become that kind of unifying project. At least not from the very top.
HOLLYWOOD, Florida — Colombia and Portugal’s World Cup match in Miami Gardens won’t be the only major draw pulling crowds to South Florida this weekend: Florida’s Republican grassroots are heading to Hollywood for their “Sunshine State Showdown.”
The GOP’s event at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is one of the state party’s biggest of the year. The GOP sold more than 800 tickets, with the party’s most devoted volunteers and many donors coming in from all over the state to get revved up for the midterms, gameplan their messaging and hear directly from top candidates.
The shindig will feature speeches from Sens. Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, as well as gubernatorial candidates Rep. Byron Donalds, former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins. It will also include two congressional debates.
Several “Showdown” attendees said they were thrilled about the convergence of their party’s bash with a World Cup match. South Florida has already seen a huge economic boom in recent years, and the Magic City is poised to become even more prominent given Miami is set to be home to Donald Trump’s future presidential library and will host the G20 in December. “Miami is again at the center of the universe,” observed Miami-Dade County GOP Chair Kevin Cooper.
Several prominent Republicans said they see the international event as an opportunity to showcase the state. State Rep. Dean Black of Jacksonville, who also chairs the Republican Party of Florida’s fundraising committee, said he’d enjoyed seeing fans from abroad show appreciation over social media for American culture. “They have fallen in love with the greatness of America,” Black said. “By being exposed to the Republican Party event, they will learn just how that greatness came to be.”
Collins’ team said that while the lieutenant governor wasn’t attending the game, he was “happy the state of Florida is hosting so many fans from across the world experiencing the beauty of our state.”
Former Fox 35 Orlando anchor Ryan Elijah, a GOP candidate for Congress who’s attending the showdown, said he would be checking his phone regularly for World Cup updates.
“What a night for Florida to see the biggest names in Florida politics and World Cup soccer be just miles apart!” he said in a text. “It’s a dream night for tourism numbers and local businesses!”
But the packed weekend also risks turning into a logistical headache. The Hard Rock Hotel is one of the pickup points offering shuttle services to Miami Stadium. It’s less than 9 miles away from the big game.
Angie Wong, Republican executive committeewoman in Miami-Dade, attended Wednesday’s match between Scotland and Brazil. She said her family paid $200 for parking near the stadium and that it took more than an hour just to get out of the parking lot.
“We were lucky — we actually left before the game ended,” she said.
Yet this year’s “Showdown” is a more scaled-back affair than in the recent past. It won’t, for example, feature a dinner like in previous years. But that’s probably good news for any attendees who don’t want to miss the soccer match — or who are just trying to get back home without getting stuck in traffic. And it doesn’t have any major Trump administration officials attending, in comparison to last year, when the event prominently featured White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and now-former deputy chief of staff James Blair, who is currently running Trump’s political operation for the midterms.
Florida’s GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis — who remains highly popular with the state’s grassroots — won’t be speaking at the “Showdown” this weekend and his office didn’t reply to an inquiry about whether he’d attend Saturday night’s game. The governor was in the Miami area during the last couple of days, including hitting the Brazil-Scotland game on Wednesday night and holding a press conference at the former Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention center on Thursday.
Evan Power, chair of the state party, had already arrived at the Hard Rock Hotel on Wednesday night and said he got to watch a Brazilian victory parade happening right outside the restaurant where he was having dinner. He added he hadn’t had any issues getting in and out of the events center and that Republicans sold out their room block, “so I think we were able to get in before the craziness.”
“In our room block, people are happy because they’re not paying the market rate that is out there,” Power said. “Seeing some of the prices — they’re crazy now.”
SEATTLE — FIFA has not endorsed the Seattle host-city committee’s “Pride Match” designation, which will not be part of the official branding when Iran and Egypt meet tonight at Lumen Field.
“I think they’ve always been aware of what we’re doing,” said Louise Chernin, who as chair of the organizing committee’s Pride Match Impact Council began planning for the day nearly a year and a half ago.
Chernin began her match day at Rough & Tumble, a women’s sports bar in Ballard, a historically Scandinavian neighborhood where a crowd had gathered to cheer on Norway against France. The bar was notably free of FIFA’s commercial imprint: The World Cup posters on the walls and the merchandise for sale were all drawn by local artists without any official logos.
It all reflected the extent to which the “Pride Match” has become a gentle challenge not only to FIFA’s record of clamping down on some expressions of LGBTQ+ rights but also the corporate monoculture it creates in host cities through its restrictive sponsorship rules.
“If there’s going to be revenue spent, let us bring it to LGBTQ-owned businesses,” said Chernin, a longtime head of the Greater Seattle Business Association, an LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce.
Just down the street, fans had gathered at a “regnbue” street festival — the word is Danish and Norwegian for “rainbow” — organized by a local Ballard business association. The Norway-France match was being shown on an oversized screen, but when halftime hit attendees did not listen to any of the ads on the Fox broadcast.
Instead DJ SummerSoft took the stage as Sativa the Queen, a local drag performer, vamped through the break.
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