THEMA: At The Mercy Of Democracy

We're a week away from a critical date with destiny for the Olympic Movement: it's the day that may decide whether the Los Angeles Games will go ahead in 2028 as a celebration of excellence and participation in sport that brings the world together, or goes down in history as a marriage of Berlin 1936 and Moscow 1980 in which politics drips from every banner - and boycott is almost guaranteed.

It sounds ludicrous to frame it like that when referring to the land of political leadership Abraham Lincoln; George Washington (critical governing precedents included voluntarily stepping down after two terms as the 'executive branch' took shape); Franklin D. Roosevelt; Thomas Jefferson (principal author of the Declaration of Independence); Theodore Roosevelt (antitrust enforcement, consumer protection laws, expansion of the national park system; Martin Luther King Jr. (Civil Rights Leader who organised non-violent mass movements that dismantled legal segregation and secured landmark civil rights and voting legislation); General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), who oversaw the entire strategy and made the final, critical decision to launch the invasion on June 6, 1944) ... and so on.

That first of its kind, Federalist No. 1, was a core intellectual foundation for the U.S. Constitution. It now marks National Civics Day to promote American civic education and democratic participation. It's the kind of event that made American Great almost two and a half centuries before again meant getting the "White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory" (Barack Obama), and building a ballroom for the bulk of a billion while 34.5 million Americans (10.2% of all of 'em) live in official poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2025).

One way of describing the difference, all too kindly: Publius had the people and progress front and centre, Potus 2026 says he does, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

So, what, say some in sport: we live in an autonomous bubble, we don't do politics.

If only...