The Boos Heard Round the World
Eighty thousand people made eighty thousand people's worth of noise. The media heard a unanimous political statement.
Regular readers know I don’t do sportsball. I don’t understand it, I don’t watch it, and if I write about it, it’s generally in the context of the halftime entertainment or dudes in drag trying to defile Title IX. I’m also married to the jockiest jock you ever met; a man who arranges his day around tipoffs and kickoffs and has never channel-surfed past a televised athletic event that couldn’t suck him in.
So naturally, the World Cup final was blaring loudly as we cooked dinner on Sunday. When Spain clinched it, the broadcast went full cinematic melodrama: agonizing close-ups of crushed Argentine players staring into the middle distance like someone had just put down the team dog, cut with jubilant Spaniards screaming, sobbing, and launching themselves into a delirious dogpile. The stadium went wild. Strangers hugged each other like long-lost relatives. When Trump strode onto the field to hand out the hardware, several Spanish players broke into the Trump dance. It was sweet and wholesome and exactly what I imagine international sporting events were designed to do: bring people together.
Apparently, I did not see what I saw.
Within minutes of Spain lifting the World Cup trophy, the headlines were locked and loaded: “Trump booed by World Cup final crowd.” “Most universally hated president in history.” “Not a mixed reaction.”
The weirdest bit is that for the most part, the soundtrack to the “MASSIVE BOOS for Trump at World Cup” lineup doesn’t sound like an overwhelming chorus of disappointment. It sounds like… stadium noise. Clapping. Whistling. Stomping. Shouting. Music. The sort of sounds you’d expect in the immediate aftermath of a hard-won victory from a crowd that’s half euphoric, half heartbroken.
According to the internet, I also need to get my ears checked.
“I am sorry but seeing MAGA cope after Trump was mercilessly booed at FIFA is the funniest thing on the planet,” X user @CalltoActivism wrote (profile tagline: “Founded to expose MAGA corruption, defend democracy, and uplift those fighting for truth and justice.”). “They are denying he was booed when at the end of this clip it is abundantly obvious the entire world hates Donald Trump’s f***ing guts.”
Do I doubt there were people at that game expressing audible disdain for Donald Trump? Not for one skinny minute. There is one snippet making the media rounds where the displeasure is undeniable. But when the entire press corps latches onto the same cherry-picked phone clip featuring one random dude and his five friends yelling into the void, that’s not news; it’s the same tired narrative spin the Fourth Estate’s been putting on POTUS since 2016.
Meanwhile, dozens of broadcasts—ones with actual professional audio rigs covering the whole venue—didn’t seem to pick up some deafening, universal cascade of hatred. What they picked up was a mixed crowd at a sporting event reacting to a man who inspires devotion and disgust in roughly equal measure, followed by the winning team celebrating.
THE ENTIRE MEDIA INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: “80,000 people loathe Trump!”
Rodri, the captain of the Spanish national team, shook Trump’s hand warmly. Multiple players grinned and posed with POTUS. Maybe they were genuinely excited to meet him. Maybe they were all faking it. Maybe they were just world champions who would’ve grinned next to a parking meter at that particular moment. Maybe Argentine fans were booing Spain. Maybe half the stadium was booing Trump. Maybe it was just five guys with excellent lung capacity. Maybe the Spanish team was honoring the American president with their little dance moves (and later, their Make Spain Great Again hats). Maybe they were mocking him. Maybe they were just a bunch of ecstatic athletes being goofy after winning the biggest match of their lives. Maybe they don’t think about Donald Trump at all. Maybe all of these things contain an element of truth. Most likely, they do. I have no way of knowing how much—and neither do the people confidently informing us that every decibel and dance move emanating from that stadium was a referendum on Donald Trump.
Because here’s the thing about crowd noise at an 80,000-seat stadium: it’s never one thing. Never has been. And it’s never just about one clip. But when it comes to the reporting, it’s the same formula every time: find the most hostile angle, crop out the rest, declare consensus. Because “mixed reaction at sporting event” doesn’t give New York Times readers the affirmation—and the dopamine fix—that’s guaranteed with their subscription. So here we are.
The funniest part isn’t the booing or the cheering. It’s the desperation. The hysteria. The manufactured certainty. These outlets and commentators need viewers to believe that the world hates Trump as much as they do. That the verdict is in. That the planet has spoken. That this time—finally—the public rejection is total and undeniable. As if convincing Trump supporters that all of humankind is pointing and laughing might finally shame them into admitting they voted wrong—and make damn sure they don’t do it again.
And then there’s the team photo—the one that Spain cropped or edited or Photoshopped Trump out of (depending on who you listen to). Imagine getting so giddy over your own exaggerated “TRUMP IS A PLANETARY ABOMINATION” narrative that you have to pretend not wanting a guy with no connection to the team in your group victory picture is some grand statement of global revulsion.
The media, alas, will never stop mediaing. A stadium packed with 80,000 people produced cheers, jeers, whistles, whines, applause, arguments, celebrations, sore losers, triumphant winners, and scores of spectators behaving as if they had personally just won or lost the World Cup. The press took all of that messy, contradictory humanity, found the twelve seconds it liked best, and handed down a unanimous verdict on behalf of the planet.
My take? If you need one angry guy with an iPhone in the nosebleed seats to prove the entire world agrees with you, I’m pretty sure you’re the one coping.
Want to know why a substance you’ve probably been told belongs somewhere between antifreeze and rat poison on the “things you absolutely should not ingest” list has become one of the most sought-after—and fiercely suppressed—medical treatments in the world? Tune in to hear my co-author Dr. Pierre Kory discussing our latest book, The War on Chlorine Dioxide, with the lovely Dr. Tara Perry.
How could it be that, at this juncture in time, everyone does not despise the news and entertainment industries?
TDS. Part of the overwhelming insanity that God said would be people calling good bad and bad good.