The culture of sports vs the culture of the elite left

Sports are an essential part of American culture. Look at the football stadiums, basketball arenas, baseball fields, tennis courts, golf courses and other sports facilities which prominently mark the American landscape. 

Young Americans grow up practicing individual sports such as running, figure skating, acrobatics, golfing, bowling, swimming and skiing. And they practice group sports such as baseball, basketball, soccer and football. Parents spend an amazing number of hours driving their children to and from a wide variety of practice sessions (far more hours than are driven to tutoring in academic subjects, for better or worse).   

There are countless sporting events year-round on television. As I wrote earlier this week, many of them are among the top-rated shows (NFL football, major college football bowl games and college basketball’s March Madness Final Four have enormous viewership). 

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There is a fascinating relationship between this interest in sports and the pragmatic, competitive culture at the heart of the American system. Consider key values and realities of sports and compare them to the elite modern left’s efforts to fundamentally change society and put Americans into a post-competitive culture. 

The contrast between the values inherent in sports and the attitudes and values of the elite modern left is astonishing. It explains why generations of effort by elite left-wing academics, news media, politicians and bureaucrats were ultimately rejected by the American people in the 2024 elections. 

Consider the key elements of sports culture and how decisively they contradict and reject the alternative values of the elite modern left. 

1. Winning is good. Elitist leftists abhor the idea that winners should be elevated because it makes losers feel excluded. Sports enthusiasts think defeat is a simple step toward trying harder to succeed.  

2. Mastering any sport requires constant practice and hard work. But the elite left rejects hard work as subordinating your free, artistic, pampered being to the indignity of effort. It is why elite leftists have, for three generations, derided working at McDonald’s as “hamburger flipping jobs” that are beneath the dignity of those who should be treated better. Since more than 40 million people have worked at McDonald’s (including Jeff Bezos) it is clear the elite left is not winning on this value. 

3. Any competitive sport provides an opportunity for achievement – but not a guarantee of success. Even the best at any given sport will lose more than they win. Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords catcher Josh Gibson still holds the best batting average in Major League Baseball. He played in the Negro League II in the 1930s and 1940s. Yet, Gibson’s .372 batting average means he failed to hit about six-out-of-10 at-bats. 

Tom Brady is the winningest quarterback in history, but he lost one-fourth of his games. Tiger Woods, possibly the greatest golfer in history, had long stretches where he simply could not win. Deciding to compete in sports means you must be prepared to lose and continue competing. Sports fans think the process builds character. The elite left thinks it is cruel and exclusionary.  

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4. There is an inherent meritocracy in competitive sports. This commitment to excellence is in direct contradiction to the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mindset which has come to dominate the elite modern left. Consider a football team entering the championship game. The sports culture would say “play the first-string players.” The DEI crowd would say “play the appropriate players to represent racial inclusion and make sure everyone feels a sense of equity.” 

Playing your least-talented quarterback is DEI’s version of fairness. Virtually every sports fan would consider that approach insane and a guaranteed loss for the entire team (of course, the same principle applies to companies and countries). 

Members of the Democrat and Republican teams shake hands following the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity at National’s Park on June 12, 2024, in Washington, DC. The annual bipartisan game was first played in 1909. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

5. The positive side of playing your best players and putting together your best team is celebrating success. With the elite left’s passion for inclusion, you never know if you won because you were the best – or if it was simply deemed your turn. An inclusion-based system makes participation and identity more important than success. This is what leads to spectacles such as Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren claiming to be part Native American to get a better shot at joining the Texas Bar. 

In the real world, people who rely on the historically proven principles of success as exemplified by sports will consistently improve and eventually succeed. Those who create a fantasy world reliant on short-term feelings will be doomed to long-term failure. 

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The elite left’s effort to reject reality and impose its own social and political values has been growing for a long time. Tom Wolfe captured this insanity and complete isolation from reality in a brilliant set of essays published in 1970 called “Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.” If you read Wolfe’s essays, it will be impossible for you to ever take the elite left seriously again – except as a mortal threat to the American culture of hard work, courage, and success. 

If Republicans thoroughly modernize government using the cultural values of sports, America will become a safer, more prosperous and more successful country. It will also become clear that the modern Democratic Party is made up of elitists committed to values and principles that simply don’t work in the real world. 

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