Ann Coulter Is Right to Fear the World Cup

[Syt]

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/06/ann-coulter-is-right-to-fear-the-world-cup/373680/

Ann Coulter Is Right to Fear the World Cup

America's growing coalition of soccer fans looks a lot like the coalition that got Obama elected.

Last week, Ann Coulter penned a column explaining why soccer is un-American. First, it's collectivist. ("Individual achievement is not a big factor...blame is dispersed.") Second, it's effeminate. ("It's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys.") Third, it's culturally elitist. ("The same people trying to push soccer on Americans are the ones demanding that we love HBO's "Girls," light-rail, Beyoncé and Hillary Clinton.") Fourth, and most importantly, "It's foreign...Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it's European."

Soccer hatred, in other words, exemplifies American exceptionalism. For roughly two centuries, American exceptionalism has rested on the premise that there is a standard mode of national behavior, born in Europe, which America resists. Over the centuries, what constitutes that European standard—and America's resistance to it—has changed. For some 19th-century thinkers, for instance, what made America exceptional was its refusal to partake of the European habit of fighting wars. For Coulter and many contemporary conservatives, by contrast, part of what makes America exceptional is its individualism, manliness and populism. (All of which soccer allegedly lacks).

But Coulter's deeper point is that for America to truly be America, it must stand apart. That's why she brings up the metric system. The main reason to resist the metric system isn't that it's a bad form of measurement. It's that it's a European form of measurement. So it is with soccer. Soccer's alleged collectivism, effeminacy and elitism are simply markers of its foreignness. The core problem with embracing soccer is that in so doing, America would become more like the rest of the world.

Which is why Coulter should be very afraid. Because America is embracing soccer. America's World Cup game against Portugal attracted almost 25 million television viewers in the U.S., eight million more than watched the highest rated World Cup game in 2010, and far more than the average viewership for last year's World Series or this year's NBA finals. NBC now broadcasts English soccer. And America's own league, Major League Soccer, draws as many fans to its stadiums as do the NHL and NBA.

Worse, from Coulter's perspective, Americans like soccer for the very reason she loathes it: It connects us to the rest of the world. Earlier this year, I wrote an essay entitled "The End of American Exceptionalism," which argued that on subjects where the United States has long been seen as different, attitudes in America increasingly resemble those in Europe. Soccer is one of the best examples yet.

To understand how the embrace of soccer undermines American exceptionalism, it's worth understanding why Americans rejected soccer to begin with. In their 2001 book, Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism, Andrei Markovits and Steven Hellerman argue that in advanced industrial countries, the sports that achieved hegemony in the late 19th and early 20th centuries have generally maintained preeminence ever since.

So why didn't soccer gain a foothold in the U.S. in the decades between the Civil War and World War I, when it was gaining dominance in Europe? Precisely because it was gaining dominance in Europe. The arbiters of taste in late 19th and early 20th century America wanted its national pastimes to be exceptional. Despite the British roots of both baseball (in rounders) and football (in rugby), their promoters worked to cleanse them of foreign associations and market them as American originals. Basketball had the good fortune to have actually been invented in the United States.

Soccer, by contrast, was associated with foreignness in an era when mass immigration was spawning Coulter-like fears that America was losing its special character. "Soccer," Markovits and Hellerman argue, "was perceived by both native-born Americans and immigrants as a non-American activity at a time in American history when nativism and nationalism emerged to create a distinctly American self-image ... if one liked soccer, one was viewed as at least resisting—if not outright rejecting—integration into America." Old-stock Americans, in other words, were elevating baseball, football, and basketball into symbols of America's distinct identity. Immigrants realized that embracing those sports offered a way to claim that identity for themselves. Clinging to soccer, by contrast, was a declaration that you would not melt.

So why is interest in soccer rising now? Partly, because the United States is yet again witnessing mass immigration from soccer-mad nations. A huge chunk of the soccer fans in America today are Hispanic. According to one recent study, 56 percent of Hispanic Americans said they planned to watch the World Cup compared to only 20 percent of white non-Hispanics. Twenty-six percent of Hispanics in the U.S. call soccer their favorite game; among non-Hispanics whites, it's three percent.

The difference between Hispanic immigrants today and European immigrants a century ago is that today's newcomers don't feel they must reject soccer to prove their Americanism. Technology makes it easier to stay connected to one's favorite teams back home. But the key shift is that America's sports culture is less nativist. More native-born Americans now accept that a game invented overseas can become authentically American, and that the immigrants who love it can become authentically American too. Fewer believe that to have merit, something must be invented in the United States.

This reflects a broader turn away from the exceptionalism that Coulter champions: Americans today are less likely to insist that America's way of doing things is always best. In 2002, 60 percent of Americans told the Pew Research Center that, "our culture is superior to others." By 2011, it was down to 49 percent. This change is being led by the young. According to that same 2011 Pew survey, Americans over the age of 50 were 15 points more likely to say "our culture is superior" than were people over 50 in Germany, Spain, Britain, and France. Americans under 30, by contrast, were actually less likely to say "our culture is superior" than their counterparts in Germany, Spain, and Britain.

It's not surprising, therefore, that young Americans disproportionately like soccer. The average age of Americans who call baseball their favorite sport is 53. Among Americans who like football best, it's 46. Among Americans who prefer soccer, by contrast, the average age is only 37.

Beside Hispanics and the young, the third major pro-soccer constituency is liberals. They're willing to embrace a European sport for the same reason they're willing to embrace a European-style health care system: because they see no inherent value in America being an exception to the global rule. According to a survey by Experian Marketing Services, American liberals were almost twice as likely to watch the 2010 World Cup as American conservatives. When the real-estate website Estately created a seven part index to determine a state's love of soccer, it found that Washington State, Maryland, the District of Columbia, New York, and New Jersey—all bright blue—loved soccer best, while Alabama, Arkansas, North Dakota, Mississippi and Montana—all bright red—liked it least.

In fact, the soccer coalition—immigrants, liberals and the young—looks a lot like the Obama coalition. Not long ago, commentators assumed that these groups could never make soccer popular on their own. The traditional "rule of thumb," argued Markovits and Hellerman in 2001, is that for a sport to succeed in America, it must develop strong roots among the white working class. "Soccer, on the other hand, continues to be identified as 'yuppie' and 'preppy' indulged by a mixture of suburban 'soccer moms,' along with Hispanic immigrants."

But what Markovits and Hellerman didn't anticipate is that the same demographic changes that have helped Obama win the White House without strong white working class support are helping soccer gain acceptance without it too. Soccer's rise is part of what John Judis and Ruy Teixeira call "George McGovern's revenge." In 1972, McGovern won minorities, well-educated white liberals, and the young, but still lost 49 states. Since then, however, the minority share of the American electorate has risen from 11 percent to 28 percent. Whites without college degrees, by contrast, composed only 36 percent of American voters in 2012, down from 54 percent in 1988. (The only group that figures prominently in the Obama coalition but not the soccer coalition is African Americans, who disproportionately favor basketball. Sports-wise, therefore, Democrats constitute an alliance between soccer and basketball fans while Republicans disproportionately follow baseball, golf, and NASCAR. Football, by far America's most popular sport, crosses the aisle.)

The willingness of growing numbers of Americans to embrace soccer bespeaks their willingness to imagine a different relationship with the world. Historically, conservative foreign policy has oscillated between isolationism and imperialism. America must either retreat from the world or master it. It cannot be one among equals, bound by the same rules as everyone else. Exceptionalists view sports the same way. Coulter likes football, baseball, and basketball because America either plays them by itself, or—when other countries play against us—we dominate them. (In fact, most of the other countries that play baseball do so because they were once under U.S. occupation).

Embracing soccer, by contrast, means embracing America's role as merely one nation among many, without special privileges. It's no coincidence that young Americans, in addition to liking soccer, also like the United Nations. In 2013, Pew found that Americans under 30 were 24 points more favorable to the U.N. than Americans over 50. According to a 2011 Pew poll, Millennials were also 23 points more likely than the elderly to say America should take its allies' opinion into account even if means compromising our desires.

Coulter would find this deeply un-American. But it's a healthy response to a world that America is both less able to withdraw from, and less able to dominate, than it was in the past. In embracing soccer, Americans are learning to take something we neither invented nor control, and nonetheless make it our own. It's a skill we're going to need in the years to come.

[Admiral Yi]

A little surprised that baseball fans skew Republican.

[alfred russel]

I think ann coulter is doing a victory dance with the publication of this article.

[The Brain]

African Americans, who disproportionately favor basketball

Keep the tired racist clichés coming.

[Valmy]

So why didn't soccer gain a foothold in the U.S. in the decades between the Civil War and World War I, when it was gaining dominance in Europe? Precisely because it was gaining dominance in Europe.

This is nonsense.  Any historical evidence for this?  I have to admit that is the first time I have ever heard that before.  I mean the main reason for Baseball's success was the tireless promotion by the Englishman Henry Chadwick.  If we were playing these sports simply to show how long our American shlongs were surely we would have rejected Baseball as being that evil foreigner Chadwick's obsession.

The arbiters of taste in late 19th and early 20th century America wanted its national pastimes to be exceptional. Despite the British roots of both baseball (in rounders) and football (in rugby), their promoters worked to cleanse them of foreign associations and market them as American originals. Basketball had the good fortune to have actually been invented in the United States.

Ok but that has nothing to do with why American football and Baseball became popular.  They were already loved and widely played before the late 19th century, early 20th century when Spalding and company decided they had to show Baseball was 100% American.  Further I have never heard anything like this for American Football.  Our sports were just what we played not developed out of nationalist reaction out of obsession with Europe and a hatred of Europeans.  How idiotic.

[CountDeMoney]

A little surprised that baseball fans skew Republican.

Like Sears shoppers and people who still buy Buicks, it's an aging demographic.

[Admiral Yi]

Like Sears shoppers and people who still buy Buicks, it's an aging demographic.

That makes sense.

[jimmy olsen]

A little surprised that baseball fans skew Republican.

Definitely surprised by that, baseball's highest level of support is in the northeast, all of them solid democratic or swing states. Not a republican one among them.

[Viking]

So why didn't soccer gain a foothold in the U.S. in the decades between the Civil War and World War I, when it was gaining dominance in Europe? Precisely because it was gaining dominance in Europe.

This is nonsense.  Any historical evidence for this?  I have to admit that is the first time I have ever heard that before.  I mean the main reason for Baseball's success was the tireless promotion by the Englishman Henry Chadwick.  If we were playing these sports simply to show how long our American shlongs were surely we would have rejected Baseball as being that evil foreigner Chadwick's obsession.

Baseball had success on it's own and it did develop out of version of cricket.

And, as I said before, Soccer spread where British commercial interests but not british immigration happened. Rugby and Cricket spread where there was british immigration. It's only when the Forward Pass came into use that the american game became fully separated from what became Rugby League.

[derspiess]

It always puzzled me a bit that so many traditional northeast lefties and outright Marxists are huge baseball fans.

The science of the sport appeals to intellectual elitism.

But tell that to George F. Will.

[derspiess]

Ok but that has nothing to do with why American football and Baseball became popular.  They were already loved and widely played before the late 19th century, early 20th century when Spalding and company decided they had to show Baseball was 100% American.  Further I have never heard anything like this for American Football.  Our sports were just what we played not developed out of nationalist reaction out of obsession with Europe and a hatred of Europeans.  How idiotic.

Yeah.  Seems a bit anachronistic to assume that mid-19th century Americans had a clear idea of what sports were popular in Europe.  I don't think they would give a shit either way what was popular there.

[OttoVonBismarck]

My understanding was always that early rugby developed into American football here, Canadian football up north, and Association Football in England (which then spread.) I don't really think that happened out of a North American hatred of how the English developed it, anymore than the Canadian version developed out of a hatred of four downs...things just happened differently and countries stuck with what they had.

As a big baseball fan and reader of baseball history I'll contest that it derived from Cricket. Baseball's origins are mostly poorly known and understood, but the most recent research on it suggests that there were a slew of essentially regional bat-and-ball games in both England and Europe. Cricket and baseball both developed from these bat-and-ball games, and there's even some evidence Cricket specifically developed from a type of bat-and-ball game originally played in Flanders, which was imported to England.

The best known candidates for proto-baseball are Rounders and Stoolball, both regional bat-and-ball games in England. Baseball as we know it then most likely developed organically in the United States from bat-and-ball games imported in the Colonial Era and probably imported again by subsequent immigration. Basically people had long played games with bats and balls, and baseball is one type of those games which developed and became popular.

By the 1870s baseball was already drawing large crowds in the United States and fielding the first true professional athletes in America, men who were paid large sums to solely play baseball--there's record of some of the best players making like $2,000/year--a huge sum in that time. Given that I don't think it's too likely we embraced baseball out of hatred of Association Football and Europeans, it was really only getting started around the same time, and arguably baseball had already become a major (as in people in large numbers paid to go see it, and some players could earn a living playing full time) sport before Association Football. So America's embrace of it for anti-European reasons seems unlikely.

[The Brain]

Stoolball.

[garbon]

Soccer hatred?

[derspiess]

Good job, Seedy