Politics
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UP NEXT
Democrats can’t win without focusing on poor and low-income voters: Bishop William Barber
05:28
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‘Come to Jesus moment’ needed for Democratic Party’s decision-making
07:52
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‘Russia won the Cold War with Trump’: Pro-Russia agenda certain with second term
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‘Laughing all the way to the bank’: Trump divided America, then these billionaires made $64 billion
11:46
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‘Despair is not an option’: Battle plan for Trump’s mass deportations
08:10
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‘Y’all voted with David Duke’: Joy on 55% of Latino men voting ‘to make deportations happen’
09:19
CANBERRA — It was disappointment from start to finish around the USA vs. Australia match in the Bush Capital, won comfortably by the American side.
Neither of Canberra’s Socceroos made the starting lineup and the local government failed to provide an outdoor watch site for the match, despite a heavy social media campaign from locals. With federal politicians out of town and back in their districts this week, the campaign lacked star power and fell on deaf ears.
That left thousands to fill inner city pubs and the University of Canberra, which were allowed special trading hours for the match, from 4.30 a.m.
Australia’s politicians — vocal in their support in the lead-up to the match — went silent quickly, after Australia’s own goal 11 minutes minutes into the game.
If the Aussies’ lackluster performance left the crowd subdued, they found energy to boo Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a notably unpopular figure in Australia, which embraced harsh Covid lockdowns and vaccines — when he appeared on the match broadcast.
While Boston and Dallas have been taken over by marauding Scotland and England fans, Washington D.C. this week welcomed a (slightly) more sedate British crowd at Duke’s Grocery, a trendy restaurant and bar in Washington’s West End neighborhood.
Call it the U.K.’s diplomatic mullet: Business in the front; party in the back.
More than a hundred England fans crowded some ten television sets inside the bar on Wednesday, invited by the U.K. embassy to mark their team’s first game of the World Cup against Croatia.
Flags for every participant hung down from the ceiling. An old British telephone box sat in the corner, chock full of cups and salt shakers. There was also a cardboard cutout of Prince William and Kate at their wedding tucked underneath a Pride flag just by the front door.
Despite a critical byelection in Makerfield on Thursday, which is set to propel Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham toward a leadership challenge to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, sport was top of mind at the party.
“That’s the best bit about it,” said Frances Sterling, head of strategic communications and public diplomacy at the British Embassy in Washington. “This afternoon, there’s been no politics.”
The event pulled in Premier League fans from many of England’s largest clubs, encompassing World Bank staffers and embassy employees, English and Americans. They drank, celebrated heartily when England scored and chanted “wanker” in unison when calls went against them on the field.
A sign just off the projection set at the center of the bar read, “Great sport brings people together.”
“You know, you get in a stand, and you watch a football game, and everybody’s a friend,” Sterling said. “Everybody is there for one thing, and you go do the highs and lows of that team, and you feel like you live it, and, for everyone in the U.K. it’s that sense of national pride that this is their game, but it’s played all over the world.”
Duke’s will have hosted three games in tandem with the U.K. embassy throughout round robin play — two for England and just one for Scotland.
Sterling said that’s because the Scottish fans have decamped to Boston, where they’re drinking the city dry.
“The U.K. consulate there is absolutely overrun,” she said. “And so we were like, you know what? Scotland is doing great in Boston, so we’ll do one, but we know they’re all there.”
You don’t have to rely on The Discourse to know whether soccer is finally being embraced by America. Political ad spending targeted to catch World Cup viewers tells you all you need to know.
Look no further than today’s Susan Collins-aligned Pine Tree Results PAC launching the next phase of a seven-figure general election ad campaign targeting Democrat Graham Platner in Maine, the latest that flickered to life statewide during the U.S. Men’s National Team World Cup match against Australia.
“The first U.S. World Cup game was the most watched soccer broadcast in American history,” a GOP operative working on the Maine senate race, and granted anonymity to speak candidly, told Blue Light News. “Maine markets are performing better than national average and the critical Portland DMA has a significant soccer fan base.”
Or consider that James Talarico’s first ad buy of the general election Senate campaign is an $800,000 Spanish-language TV campaign spot set to air during each U.S. and Mexico group stage match.
In Denver, in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, there’s Republican Gabe Evans in a Spanish language ad, debating whether it’s soccer or football with his mother.
In politics, campaigns and super PACs are reluctant to spend money where there aren’t eyeballs, so each of these set pieces are a datapoint bearing out the truth that international soccer can draw them.
- In Canberra, disappointment
- The UK’s World Cup diplomatic mullet
- Campaigns get in the game
- Inside FIFA’s plans to commemorate Juneteenth
- Where Massachusetts wants to take its Scottish love affair next
- Kennedy and Wright cheer on US
- The politician who kicked his way to power
- The US-Australia face-off that isn’t happening
- The soccer boss in Mark Carney’s ear
- Vance says US allows more than dozen ships through to Iranian ports
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