At 4.38pm on 28 June Donald Trump dropped a Truth. Nothing unusual in that. Trump’s Truth Social feed is relentless and ever-giving.
That same afternoon he also Truthed at 3.58pm, 3.59pm, and twice at 7.42pm, all in the same instantly recognisable, weirdly cartoonish tone, as if a giant maize-based salted snack from a jaunty 1970s TV advert has been pumped full of voodoo and vitamins and propped up behind a lectern to explain geopolitics to the world, but only in the kind of words you might use while arguing with your nine-year-old sister.
Trump’s messaging that afternoon ranged across boasts about his allegedly incredible new ballroom, a 600-word Truth on the poor condition of some golf courses, and a series of complaints about losing the latest appeal in his sexual harassment case – the key injustice being the fact the jury was allowed to watch a video that appears to show Trump literally boasting about his skill at sexually harassing people. This, just to be clear, is the president of the United States.
In the middle of this, the 4.38pm Trump Truth stood out. First, because of its tone, which was relatively low-key and non-bombastic, featuring only implied rather than direct insults. And second because it was about the World Cup. Remember that?
“The FIFA Numbers are far greater than any World Cup in History. This is a Great Tribute to the United States of America,” Trump posted, referring to the opening tranche of World Cup attendance figures, which reveals the host cities have recorded 4.6 million spectators so far, breaking the previous record at the same stage.
These numbers must be taken advisedly. There has simply been more World Cup to watch, already more matches in the US, Mexico and Canada than the entirety of Qatar 2022. This is like saying: look how many calories there are in our Crispy-Stack Hyper-Cheese Megadeath Burger. Our burger is bigger. It must therefore be better.
Mainly, though, it was significant because it actually mentioned the World Cup. In an unexpected twist, Trump has so far been largely invisible across 22 days and 82 matches so far. A president who was sweatily present in the buildup is yet to attend a game. There have been no significant pronouncements outside of that low-key number-bragging. Trump has been out of the limelight. Trump loves the limelight. Why so shy? And why now?
It is very clearly a tactical choice on some level. This is a president whose entire methodology has been to transform himself into an industrial-scale brain-shout noise delivery system. Flood the zone, flood outside the zone. Just, flood.
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That voice is key to his otherwise hallucinogenically inexplicable era-shaping global presence. Here is an interesting side point about how empires flourish and fall. For centuries China was an ungovernable mess because it was too big and unwieldy, with too many voices and factions, corruption at one end of the country, warlords in between. Two things changed this: a centralised party regime, and the advent of big tech and the internet. With a single totalitarian voice staring down the lens, China’s size finally became an advantage.
Meanwhile the same process has threatened to do the opposite to the US, to fracture its discourse under the sheer multiplicity of voices and interests. Democracy and freedom of speech, versus one-party state and censorship. Which of these is best adapted to cope with the great networked shift in the human experience? There are simply too many noises here. Everyone is constantly shouting, feeding off noise. Subjected to these forces, China and the US have essentially swapped places as the mega-power threatened by an ungovernable mess.
Trump just seems to know this, or feel it, to recognise that even constant incoherence is a kind of clarity. Shout about everything, in the same voice, all the time. Become the loudest, most recognisable thing in the ambient chaos. Name recognition. Vibe recognition. Endless distinctive bombast. This is not an accident – it’s a tool of governance.
This is why his silence during the world’s largest single cultural event can only be deliberate. There is after all a playbook here. The precedent is Vladimir Putin in 2018, the first modern strongman World Cup, back when the word sportswashing wasn’t really current.
Putin was present at his World Cup, but largely mute. He turned up at the final, as Trump will, as well as various matches involving strategic allies. But while it seems absurdly naive now, Russia presented, for those four weeks, as an open, orderly, hospitable place. There was no public dissent, but also no public authoritarianism, no obvious heavy-handed policing of opinion or freedoms. Even Moscow’s criminals and football ultras were ordered to behave.
It makes sense. Don’t offer a target. Not in these four weeks when the world is watching, on a hair trigger for the latest outrage or inflammatory act. And indeed it is significant that all the possible elements of friction that were predicted pre-World Cup have not so far happened.
There are stories of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents active mid-tournament in other locations, but not around the host cities, and certainly not visible, as they were at the Club World Cup last year. If the ICE crackdown has not been formally suspended in the World Cup cities for the duration, then it can certainly feel like that to visiting fans.
There have been no obvious provocative statements from right-wing voices about the spectacle of the global diaspora enjoying the games in US cities. Even the military dealings with Iran have cooled, with convenient serendipity.
There are simpler theories to explain Trump’s absence. The president is touchy and thin-skinned. He doesn’t go to California or the west coast much because people there don’t like him, which has ruled out every US game to date. (On Wednesday Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for American Tourism, Exceptionalism and Values – yes really – posted that the president would be attending USA v Belgium in Seattle on Tuesday. Watch this space.)
He knows he will be booed at the matches. He was booed when he went to the NBA Finals in New York last month. And this is football. Right now people are booing a drinks break. World Cups are short. Let the spectacle roll. Let the glare and the colour do its job.
Maybe there is even something in the way football works that has helped to keep Trump away. For all its corporate gloss, its elitist governance, this sport will not bend to your will. It remains somehow non-compliant, in its emotional framing and in the makeup of its teams.
Trump has had some bruising interactions with the US women’s national team. The men’s team are notably multicultural, diverse and representative of the wider mix in the country. And this World Cup has been a diaspora event, a showcase for the porous nature of nationality, the success of immigrant populations. It just doesn’t fit the energy of a president who is so eager to demonise and exclude.
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Whatever the reality, whatever the political tides in France, the dominant image of this tournament’s later stages is a team of mixed and hyper-talented Frenchmen performing majestically under one flag. I can think of at least one person who doesn’t want to stand next to that. Clue: he speaks in capital letters.
Nobody out there seriously believes that a spectacle of competing nations, hands across the halfway line, might somehow arrest the current descent into divisiveness and authoritarianism. The idea that sport can actually change anything seems increasingly implausible. We are all simply gorging on the show.
But Trump’s absence from this World Cup should still be recognised for what it is, a strategy, a tactical vacating of the zone, an act of sportswashing in itself. But also, just maybe, an admission of wariness. Football won’t tell you much these days. But it might just tell you that. And please, Donald, no need to book anything or hurry back, it’s fine.
