Best of the Week: World Cup Beauty, an Insane Photo, and More

Why World Cup visitors are rediscovering the US, a remarkable South Dakota photo, the myth of democratic socialism, and a stirring defense of the American Revolution.

Every once in a while, you read a book and wish you had written it yourself. For me, that book is City of Thieves, David Benioff’s masterpiece novel that explores the Siege of Leningrad through comedy and tragedy.

Rarely have I had this feeling with an article, but I did this week. It was Andrew Sullivan’s article “Dude LMAO This Is a Gas Station.”

The World Cup, it turns out, is unifying people. For a while now, I’ve been hearing stories about how much Europeans are loving America and marveling at the things we take for granted: stacks of steak at Costco, massive beers at Buffalo Wild Wings, gas stations the size of Fort Knox.

It reminded me of Boris Yeltsin’s famous visit to a Texas grocery store.

I thought of writing something about this, but I’m glad I didn’t. Andrew’s piece is much better than what I would have written, in large part because he brings a European perspective. He appreciates America in a way I don’t think I quite can.

Best of all, his piece captures the beauty of sports, which have a remarkable way of bringing people together. In that sense, they're the opposite of politics, which so often divide people. I've long thought that competitive sports are one of the few things still holding us together today.

Andrew’s piece, which rings with optimism (something many of us need these days), shows this in a lovely way. Here’s one of several money lines:

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.

The Photo You Won’t See in Legacy Media

South Dakota had quite a storm recently. Storm chaser Jakob McMillin was on hand to take a picture of the damage.

The picture is going viral on X. I always hesitate to share these because I’m afraid of sharing a phony image. But the photo looks to be legit, from my brief investigation. (AI also tells me the photo gives all appearances of being real.)

It’s a photo you won’t find the AP or Reuters running, I suspect, for obvious reasons.

Michael Shellenberger connects the dots.

“The people who claim we can run our ultra-high-energy civilization on such garbage are lying. Their goal has been, since Malthus and then Heidegger, to dismantle our high-energy civilization, not ‘sustain’ it.”

There’s Nothing Democratic About These Socialists

I got some very nice feedback from readers on my piece warning about the dangers of the rise of socialism in America.

What I didn’t expect to see was a piece in The Atlantic offering a similar warning.

Props to Jonathan Chait — a progressive journalist whose politics are very different than my own — for writing a great takedown of the crazies who are taking over the Democratic Socialists of America.

If you doubt the extremist nature of these folks, read Chait’s piece. Here’s an excerpt:

In 2021, the DSA joined the São Paulo Forum, a communist-led international network—a move that would, one DSA member protested at the time, “support authoritarian governments who systematically violate the basic tenets of democratic socialism.” It proclaimed its solidarity with Venezuela under the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro, and with Cuba under that of the Castro brothers. The DSA now locates its vision of the ideal society in the world’s most despotic regimes.

The organization is still called democratic socialists, of course, but the term does not necessarily mean “liberal democracy” as Americans have traditionally defined it. Many socialist thinkers define what they call “true democracy” as a system in which capitalism has been overturned and the proletarian classes have seized political power through their representative vanguard (that is, them). Totalitarian states such as the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) accordingly labeled themselves “democratic.”

This is not, obviously, how the group sells itself to the broader universe of left-leaning, mostly Democratic voters it is trying to attract. During the New Deal era, Stalinist organizers pitched themselves as “liberals in a hurry.” The Progressive Party, which ran Henry Wallace for president in 1948, was secretly run by Communist Party loyalists, but it appealed to standard liberals by touting themes such as civil rights, economic justice, and an end to the Cold War.

The takeaway? Do not be fooled by those who slip the word “democratic” in front of socialism. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The American Revolution Redefined Freedom Itself

Finally, props to my colleague Pete Earle for writing a spectacular piece on an overlooked aspect of the American Revolution: it became a model for the entire world.

I read a great many America 250 pieces in recent weeks, and this might have been the best of them. A taste:

Was July 4, 1776 truly unprecedented? In the strictest historical sense, no. Human beings had long resisted empires, revolted against kings, and sought personal and commercial autonomy. The American founding borrowed heavily from Enlightenment philosophy, English constitutional traditions, and older republican ideals. Yet in another sense, it was profoundly unprecedented. Never before had a colony articulated independence so explicitly through universal principles, justified revolution through natural rights, and successfully institutionalized those ideas within a durable constitutional order.

The Declaration’s greatest contribution may therefore have been not invention, but demonstration. It showed that a people could justify independence through ideas rather than ancestry, establish government by consent as opposed to inheritance, and sustain a republic based on written constitutional rules. In doing so, the American Revolution expanded the realm of political possibility.

For millions around the world, July 4, 1776 became more than an American event. It became evidence that liberty, having been declared, might also be achieved.

The piece is worth reading in full. And if you’re curious why America’s revolution succeeded while France’s turned into a bloodbath worthy of a Quentin Tarantino film, read this piece from my old friend Lawrence Reed.

Have a happy 4th of July!