The Right Stuff

"Keep politics out of sport” is a plea that has historically been disabused and continues to be so. In the United States, the nexus between sport and politics has been one of the notable flashpoints during Trump’s first term.

Few issues expose the divisions underlying America better than the controversy over the protesting of the national anthem that have taken place in American football. It helps encapsulate the broader questions of American politics that relate to race, notions of masculinity and the allure of nationalism. In this regard, the football field transforms into a political arena, which explains why the sport has become associated not just with the resurgence of the populist right in America, but on the other hand, those forces who are compelled to resist it.

As part of his involvement with DIIS’s “ World of the Right “ research project, Kongressen sits down to interview DIIS researcher Matthew Fallon Hinds as he shows us that in America, football is truly “more than a game.”