Football Nation
No, I am not talking about sports but rather the bi-polarity of the American psyche as a whole.
There are two teams in America: The Red Team and the Blue.
In America, either you are pro or against or so it seems. It is particularly visible when it comes to politics.
So I’ll have to begin the subject with a personal experience.
Paris – Sometime in the ’70s.
At the time, I lived in Spain where I had businesses that catered to tourists in the summertime. Many of them came year after year, as humans are kind of creatures of habit. Eventually, one makes friends with some customers or at least that the impression one may have. Anyhow, I was invited to a dinner party in Paris with people I met in Spain and considered friends. Well-educated family. A successful businessman father. Four children. One doctor, two students in medicine, and the last one a 10-year-old with down syndrome being taken good care of by his mother, a great cook, and the whole rest of the family. However, the father seemed to have some level of resentment for his wife because of the little one, come to think of it.
That night was Football Night or Soccer if you prefer. We had a fantastic dinner and then came time to watch ‘Z‘ soccer match. France vs Spain.
Wine was flowing, then cognac with brief innocuous comments about players. Since I am no sports fan, I kept nodding in sort of agreement. Kind of pretending I enjoyed the game, but I must say, I was really taken by the joyful family ambiance. So far so good.
Then what was supposed to hopefully happen, happened. France scored. The whole family stood up screaming and cheering with surprising enthusiasm. So, to keep up with the Jones’ so to speak, I cheered too. I was French too after all.
Half time and French pride in the room was as thick as a big loaf of bread.
By the second half, the mood became a little more somber as the French team was no longer seeming to dominate the game. Then, a catastrophe happened. Spain scored.
Since I was living in Spain at the time and since I thought you cheered good players, regardless, I cheered the Spanish team. Oh Boy! My so-called friends could have killed me. I was a turncoat. I was not really French anymore. Go back to Spain.... You know the drift. In any case, at the next summer season, these people came back to Spain of course but did not come back to my restaurant, which they had been frequenting quite assiduously for many years previous that fatidical game night. I found it pathetic as well as very sad.
This little anecdote illustrates what my wife often says: “People stop thinking when they belong to a group or a party”. As an observer who agrees with her and agrees with Groucho Marx too when he says: “I refuse to belong to any club that would have me as a member”, I wish to see the American political football game as something worth analyzing to the best of my abilities, if not for the public at large, at least to satisfy my own curiosity.
In the ’70s, although I was residing in Spain at the time, I came many times to the US for many reasons. The first one as always was to eventually find out what was my God Father’s real name. I knew of him only because of my baptismal certificate and a few slivers of memories from my father and aunts who did not speak English nor understand any of it. I did not find out about the man until October 1978, he had passed away 3 months before I finally found him.
A second reason was that I had to keep up with the green card I obtained when I turned 21 by coming back to the USA once every two years, an immigration requirement.
A third reason was that I was picking up new recording releases from music production houses of yet unknown musicians to Europeans, on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles to play throughout the summer season in the Discotheque I owned back in Spain.
Another reason was that in 1973 I was dying to experience the hippie lifestyle, which I did not want to live to regret having missed it.
To that effect, I hitchhiked with my little Pyrenean shepherd dog for 7 months, up and down the USA, surviving on menial jobs here and there although my financial security was firmly established in Spain. But, that was my choice for that year’s off-season.
In those days although labeled tumultuous, in fact, the country was experiencing and had experienced a long post-war period of unrivaled economic prosperity and political calmness although financial issues afflicting the rest of the world were dire. In spite of that, social progressive advances were taking place or diminishing in the US. The civil rights movement was slowly fading away giving way to a period of a kind of stagnation, called then ‘Stagflation’ during which people in America failed to see the reality of a world that continued to turn without them.
No one in those days, however, could tell that Nixon had a year before opened a potentially dangerous Pandora’s box when he visited China. American businesses were so blinded by that immense pool of resources that they never envision what my Great grandfather did when he said to me as I was sitting on his lap at 11 years old “If you think the Jews are smart in business and dominate money, wait until the day China wakes up”. Where did he get this from? He was illiterate.
Those companies flocked to the Empire of the East and made great amounts of money by producing at not even a tenth of the cost of that of the US and reselling with a tenfold profit margin those goods to the public here. What they did not wish to admit was that they had to share their innovations with the Chinese who were quick to take advantage of it, hence the result is where we are today.
As a side note, yes, the American public could buy cheaper goods and hence see their standard of living augmented. For the below-average family it was a blessing but failed to see the addiction that was created for them, an addiction people in the near future are going to pay dearly for. For the country as a whole, the business exodus to China was a pending calamity as it fast depleted our country of manufacturing facilities, jobs and massively transferred the know-how American entrepreneurs had developed. Meanwhile, everyone here focused on Social Media, a fun tool for millions. Some people loved to see social media as High Technology but I believe it turned out to be more like “SEMT” Social Engineering Manipulation Technology.
Back to the 70s, with the Viet Name war slowly coming to an end amidst social pressure mostly coming from the ‘Love Everyone’ days of the 60s seemed to be the opportunity some latched on to create ephemeral movements that lacked real ideals but reflected a real fear of the draft by American youth. Social agitation ensued in the form of the Anti-War movement. I know, I was drafted 9 years before, in 1964, although I was then only a green card holder immigrant, to go to Viet Nam. I was released from that duty as I did not speak English at the time plus the fact that I was put in front of some sort of psychologist to find out if I was pretending not to be able to understand English. The man asked me in broken French “Est ce que vous êtes gay?” “Gay? Me?” Quick mental translation. In those days I had never heard the word gay except in French to signify anything other than Happy. So I responded “Yes Gay.. Very Gay”. Needless to say, I was immediately discharged. When I saw my French buddy a little later, I told him “Weird those American Army people. They don’t like it if you’re happy” as I was recalling the grim face the man in the white blouse made when I answered.
I surely was not very happy to go to war and risk my life to defend interests that were way beyond my comprehension, which had been painted by the media as a war to contain Communism. Meanwhile ‘free love’ of the sixties was getting a new lease on life, so to speak, thanks to Roe Vs. Wade which, as socially evolutionary and revolutionary as it may have been touted and still is by many even today, turned out to be, I believe, an unmitigated disaster for minorities in America, particularly Black Americans.
These social upheavals polarized American politics and the lofty goals of one side were soon abandoned. The Left took refuge for their functioning on relativism and began to promote race divisions under pretenses which at the time seemed to come from good intentions towards Black Americans who, in any case, already on their own were demanding equal freedom anyway. Meanwhile, the Right moved further toward religion and began to push back on what it perceived to be un-American values creeping into society. In those days the Media was more homogeneous and people whether Blue or Red readily believed in what was served to them each day, but in their constant quest for ratings, read advertising dollars, the media I believe misread the megatrend of a move to the center by many beginning to question them. So Media outlets wholeheartedly began to move Left ignoring that technology also had begun to move forward at such a rapid pace they wouldn’t be able to cope with. Later on the Media moved to an All American type of stance to Tabloid-like, sensationalistic formats in order to attract eyeballs, hence dollars. The Internet began and a new America seemed to appear. Not so fast!
Out of necessity and in many ways because of the Free Love movement, now liberated women started to enter the workforce and soon realized that there was a reality they had always been shielded from, that of paid inequality and gender discrimination but coming out of the 60’s sexual freedom they did not foresee what would later be termed Sexual Harassment and other involvements and vicissitudes the workforce throws on you. However, on the other hand, these unwanted inconveniences wide opened for them the door to politics and higher positions. Another biggie of joining the workforce was a dire consequence of producing fewer babies which aged the population and later would also open the doors for import of illegal immigration to compensate.
The seventies also opened the doors to enhanced team appurtenance. Before that Unions had an important social role to play. Inequality was viewed by the population in general as not a good thing for the country. The same phenomenon prevails today but it is brutally based on division rather than the common good. Based on generating phobias, an acute general sense of guilt for having too much and division which is fast killing American optimism, I observed over the years a blue team getting darker and darker and a red one still trying to keep the flame of hope alive.
With all the faults each party may have, who is right? who is wrong? It cannot be that both are right or wrong. As an observer but nonetheless a citizen, I chose optimism any day.
Today Unions are less relevant than they were in the ’60s and 70’s as events of 2021 are demonstrating unless utilized as an ephemeral political weight. Ephemeral movements such as ‘Woke’, ‘Cancel Culture’ and ‘Everyone is a racist’ plus others like it, type of religious zeal promoting irrational fears, offering nothing in return, not even wacky solutions. Those social flares are over-utilized by the Blue team or Socialist Left if you prefer, which gives them the momentary feeling of dominating the game by putting the Red team on a constant defensive. However, ephemeral is the keyword here.
Back in the ’70s neither of those teams wanted to destroy nor ‘Fundamentally Transform’ American society. Back then in fact, in spite of violent passions of preceding events in the 60s, these events which underlined that decade were more of a trampoline for greater ideas, aspirations, and bigger dreams, unfortunately, killed on April 1968.
Many people go to the games to enjoy them, to cheer their team. Most of those spectators dread anarchy and if certain players maintain temporary control of the political field via artificial means, it doesn’t hold water for too long as they soon split into groups that stand to fast lose on identity fall out of favor. Political fads if you will. When that occurs it is often followed by a formidable backlash which often brings to the fore exceptional leaders.
In conclusion, amongst fans, many go to the game to only see good, talented players and can cheer for any of them no matter if they are from France or Spain. That does not mean that they cease to support their own.
Also when fans chant an unsavory slogan, albeit it fills up the stadium, it is not coming from vile and baseless accusations but simply to show deep disagreement with a referee not able to pay attention to the game, nor able to keep his eyes on the ball.