[President Trump gave it his best shot by calling on the FIFA elite to change the rules to favor the host country. It didn’t work, however. The country has had a great time with the World Cup, and vice versa. SB SM]

https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/dude-lmao-this-is-a-gas-station-b5f?ref=thebrowser.com

“DUDE LMAO THIS IS A GAS STATION”

Multiracial harmony, globalized joy, and love for America. The World Cup saves the 250th.

Andrew Sullivan

Jun 26, 2026

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This, we are told, is the age of tribal hatreds and nationalist fervor, the time when old monsters — antisemitic, protectionist, authoritarian cults — stalk the land. Social media crackles with race war and reactionary rage. The country is so deeply polarized that the 250th Anniversary unites no one. Half the White House is in literal ruins, and algae blooms fill the unreflecting pool.

And in the middle of this humid, oppressive gloom? An unexpected, fresh burst of globalized joy, a spasm of multiracial harmony, and the real shocker: a broad, genuine outburst of love for this country, its big-hearted people, and its unsung prosperity. No one expected the World Cup to be much of a draw this year, and many were afraid it would be an almighty flop, given the global atmosphere and you-know-who. But here we are. It’s the one obvious, uplifting, positive thing going on, and it feels like a fucking tonic.

Maybe part of it is the fact that the tournament has vastly expanded to 48 countries from 32, bringing over a dozen teams into the contest for the first time. So many were just so psyched to be playing at all that even the defeats were victories. As the Moroccans defeated the Scots in Boston, you could feel the Scottish supporters shifting their fandom to Morocco for the rest of the World Cup, another plucky underdog from halfway round the world.

And you don’t have to be a soccer fan to get a lump in your throat watching a stadium full of cheering Colombians go suddenly quiet as a single Congo fan sings his country’s national anthem, and then give him a rousing cheer at the end. Or to marvel at the sea of orange-clad Dutchmen filling out the unlikely streets of Kansas City one summer afternoon; or love the Norwegians’ signature collective “row” — as the fans mimic Vikings in vast stadiums across the American heartland, and even on the NYC subway.

And then the more truly global moments, as an Iraqi chants alongside a Scot playing the bagpipes; or a crowd of Mexicans good-naturedly throws a lone Korean fan up and down in the air; or the scene in Seattle of all places, with a giant party thrown by fans of Bosnia-Herzegovina and, yes, Qatar.

The Scots, of course, stole the show wherever they went — and I saw why when I passed through Boston last week. The kilts wowed the women (and a few men); the beer flowed pathologically; and large throngs of shit-faced Scottish males somehow never turned violent for the first time in recorded history. “No Scotland, No Party” became Boston’s unofficial anthem for a week or so, and for reasons I still don’t quite grasp, the Scots’ main extracurricular activity was finding bright-orange traffic cones and putting them on their heads — or anything else nearby that was available. Good times. Boston misses them already, especially the bar owners.

And then the real America showed up. Not the psycho president, but the American people. A small-town sheriff in Texas helped a group of Swedes in a broken-down RV, and another Texan invited fans from France and Poland to his 30-acre property for a cowboy tour. Zoom in on Lawrence, Kansas, where 300 Americans waited in the rain for hours in the night to cheer the arrival of the Algerian team. This is America:

Lawrence and the University of Kansas have welcomed the Algerian team and its fans with cheers of “Rock Chalk Algeria” [the KU chant is usually “Rock Chalk Jayhawk”]. Lawrence-based artist Stan Herd created earthwork art of the Algerian flag. What really put it over the top for me was learning that a KU band learned the Algerian national anthem, “Kassaman,” to play at the national team’s open practice last Thursday.

And it’s always a joy when Europeans express the same amazement I felt all those decades ago as I first discovered this wonderland. “Everyone’s just so nice,” said one, which is what every relative who has ever visited me always says about America. Always. The openness and friendliness, the mind-bending hospitality: it’s a truly new world. In one video, a Frenchman at Costco says, “No less than 20 people have stopped and said ‘Hi’. I do not understand this ‘Hi’. … We don’t have any guns in France, but if you did that in France, you would get shot.”

Then you have Buc-ee’s, air-conditioning, barbecue chicken, gigantic Walmarts and Starbucks, endless Taco Bells and 7-11 Big Gulps, Motel 6s, giant flags everywhere, and the sheer bounty of delicious, cheap food:

They are reacting to Beaver Nuggets, to the free refill tradition, to the experience of walking into a Waffle House at 1 a.m. and receiving great food, great prices, and friendly staff in that particular order. They are reacting to ranch dressing with the urgency of people who have discovered something that should have been available to them their entire lives and wasn’t.

If you think the American way of life is ending, you should listen to some of these star-struck visitors. “Indiana is exactly how I dreamed America would be. Small towns, wide open spaces, cornfields, barns, cute houses, diners, water towers, friendly people, great food, American flags everywhere, and so much more!” said one Swede, who’d also been won over by Ranch dressing (a true revelation). By getting peeps to go to the heartland for matches in various stadiums, rather than the usual coastal tourist fare, the World Cup is actually giving a more representative picture of the entire country — and it’s a huge hit, arguably the biggest PR victory for America since Obama’s first election.

Of course it is. Get off social media and see the real America: pragmatic, fun, chill. And I think the extreme bonhomie of this competition so far is partly because of America as well. This place is relatively fresh for soccer — and so its territory is not staked out like, say, Germany or Argentina or England. Everyone is at an away game here. And then America is itself a stupendous achievement of multicultural energy and fun — the perfect host for a multiracial global contest.

I saw it last week. My Scots-filled train to New York just happened to collide with the Knicks’ parade in Manhattan, and all at once the parallels were clear. Every race and religion, every language and accent, every new immigrant and Mayflower descendant, every cantankerous and ornery NYC tribe somehow united for a while in post-racial, post-tribal euphoria, where the only tribe that mattered was the tribe of all tribes: the Knicks.

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Sports can do this at their best: harness harmless, low-level tribalism to defang risky, high-level tribalism, using human nature to counter human nature. And this World Cup shows not only that there is nothing inevitable about deepening ethnic, religious, and national divides, but that with the right moment and the right inspiration, the human spirit can both channel and transcend them. Spectacularly.

We are deeply, ineradicably tribal creatures, but we can look up from that if we choose, to something less zero-sum. We can choose to be more curious about and enchanted by others, to be fascinated by difference rather than so afraid of it. And there is no more appropriate stage for that confluence of different humanities than here, in America, even now, in this fearful, demagogic age of unnervingly rapid change.

We forget too easily the multicultural miracle we have already achieved in this quarter of a millennium, and the loving, generous, bountiful culture that is still America at its core. If it takes a soccer tournament rather than a choreographed 250th Anniversary celebration to remind us of that, so be it. We’re worth celebrating nonetheless.