The Solace of the Sports Scene and Its Chance to Chill in a Wounded World.

I write about international politics. It’s what I do and have done for the 33 years I’ve lived in Europe, so keeping up with the thornier matters of war, threats of war, and the stupidity of those who would destroy rather than build, is my daily diet.

I recover my sanity in the company of Patrick Mahomes, Fred Couples, and Ronnie O’Sullivan.

According to my sources, for most Americans, sports are often more emotionally engaging day-to-day, while politics is considered more important in principle. It would be nice to think so but, from what I see of American weariness with the current state of our union, I’d put my money with the Kansas City Chiefs any day of the week

The NFL alone routinely dominates U.S. television audiences. Events like the Super Bowl attract 100+ million viewers, far beyond even major political speeches or debates. How many actually watch the annual State of the Union speech? That’s the Super Bowl of politics, and it gets a meager 30-40 percent of that, and actually even that surprises me.

For me (now that Tom Brady hung up his helmet), Mahomes is tops among quarterbacks today. Freddie Couples still has the finest swing and sweetest personality in golf, and no one will ever pick up a snooker cue as skillfully as Ronnie O’Sullivan.

My down time values individual skills above all other stuff to watch, which is why since Roger Federer retired I don’t pay all that much attention to professional tennis. So how come Freddie is my guy? Probably because he still loves the game, and his swing and personality remain, way past their sell-by dates, and old folks pay attention to that.

I’m old.

Now, I’m told that politics has become vastly more consuming since about 2015.

Interesting, that date.

Consuming, or frightening and impossible to predict? Maybe that’s exactly its pull. We now have a frightening and impossible to predict man behind the desk in the Oval Office.

I never really thought of it that way. Cable news, social media, and culture wars turned politics into a form of both identity and entertainment. Check out the parallels to sports: teams we can rail against: a hero here and there, villains everywhere behind the scenes, rivalries, statistics and, best of all, daily outrage cycles.

Election years can temporarily rival sports in attention, especially around figures like Donald Trump.

The deeper distinction, so my advisors advise, is that both sports and politics offer a sort of tribal belonging, with no real-world consequences, as long as those masked guys aren’t after you. The main difference is you can’t talk politics anymore at the office, or beyond almost anyone not sitting at your own kitchen table.

Sports is okay at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Politics is a no-no, sometimes even with your wife, husband, or mate.

Which begs the question, what’s left if sports are of no interest to those closest to you?

What else provides emotional release, gets you anxious and angry, has clear rules and scoreboards, mostly feels chaotic and ambiguous, ends with a winner and never really ends?

The answer is nothing.

That’s a pretty severe admission, so I looked around, even between the cushions on the sofa and under the corner of the rug. You can crochet if you care to, take up watching old movies or gourmet cooking. But modern life is too discouraging to contemplate without sports.

One of the striking developments of modern America is how politics adopted the emotional structure of sports. Jerseys became hats and slogans, rallies became pep events, opponents became enemies, and ‘winning’ always mattered most.

Our younger generation has clearly seen (and embraced) the transition , and done so without question, which I find particularly disturbing. But all generations are now younger than mine, so we’ll leave it at that.

Politics, which once dominated civic management, now most often resembles a permanent championship season.

Anyone interested in watching Ronnie O’Sullivan crush a snooker opponent at age fifty?

I thought not.

We are mesmerized by watching an eighty-year-old run rampage over all the tenets of American government.

Please let me know when his season ends…

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