Varun Sule

[Daron Acemoglu @DAcemogluMIT]

This is a post about lessons from the World Cup for ethnic integration and patriotism.

When the German footballer Deniz Undav, brought in as a sub in the second half, followed his first goal in the 68thminute, with a second in stoppage time to give his national side a 2-1 win over Ivory Coast, there weren’t many German fans who didn’t see him as the hero, epitomizing the spirit of their national team. Undav, the son of a Turkish-born and Syrian-born Kurdish Yazidi parents, didn’t have the classic German look. No matter. He was delivering an exciting victory to the German side and a glimpse of what makes the beautiful game so exhilarating.

Undav was also offering a rebuke to the obsessions of both the hard right and the hard left. Not just him but the entire German squad was a living demonstration that people of very different origins and appearances can be woven into a shared enterprise that, at its best, becomes a source of collective pride rather than a threat to it; and loving your country and welcoming newcomers into it are not incompatible impulses. The right insists the first half of that sentence is dangerous; the left often flinches at the second.

This isn’t the message from just the German team. The World Cup, played this summer across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, puts ethnically-mixed squads in front of billions of fans. Every serious contender in the tournament is fielding players whose families arrived a generation or two ago. And almost every one of them is generating a joyful patriotism shared by their team and supporters alike. The combination of diversity and pride, together, is precisely what the political extremes insist is impossible.

Consider the right first. Across much of the industrialized world, mainstream politics has become consumed by anxiety over the immigration of culturally and ethnically different peoples – and the supposed discord it brings. Ideas once confined to the darker corners of the internet, from the “Great Replacement” to “remigration,” are now aired and debated in respectable forums. In a recent YouGov poll, 45% of Brits, 50% of Danes, 51% of the French, 53% of Germans, 51% of Italians, 52% of Poles, and 46% of Spaniards expressed support for a scenario in which immigration stopped and many recent migrants departed. To be clear, the harshest version of such an agenda, which involves forced expulsion (sometimes bordering a modern version of ethnic cleansing) commands little support, and survey wording may be inflating softer concerns. But even allowing for those caveats, this is a striking reversal from less than a decade ago, when many of the same publics welcomed those fleeing war in the Middle East.

The left has traveled in a different but still troubling direction. Among some activists and philosophers, the world came to be read almost entirely through the lens of oppressor-oppressed dynamics, with Western nations placed firmly in the former camp. Patriotism – which at its best allows one to identify with the customs and history of one’s country while remaining free to criticize its failings – came to be viewed with suspicion, even disdain. The shift shows up in the data: the share of US Democrats reporting “extreme pride” in being American, according to Gallup, fell from the mid-60s in the early 2000s to just 22% in 2019 (even if it recovered somewhat since then).

That last figure deserves a caveat. Much of the collapse coincided with a presidency many Democrats sharply disagreed with, so some of it may reflect disaffection with who governed rather than a principled rejection of country. But the deeper trend is real: on parts of the left, the very vocabulary of national pride has become an embarrassment. This is troubling because without a shared identity it becomes harder for national politics to coalesce around policies that will watch out for and support those who are losing out – as the working classes, especially those without four-year college degrees, have been over the last several decades throughout the industrialized world.

Sport, of course, is not a perfect mirror of society. A national squad is a small, lavishly resourced, intensely managed group united by a single unambiguous goal-– hardly the same as integrating large populations into housing, schools, and labor markets. Nor is sporting integration as frictionless as the cheering suggests. England’s Black players were deluged with racist abuse after losing the Euro 2020 final; France’s “Bleus” are perennially dragged into arguments about who counts as truly French; and the US has an ugly history of racism not just in baseball but throughout many sports. Integration in sport is celebrated by the many and contested by a loud minority – exactly the pattern we see in the wider society.

The World Cup does not prove that integration is easy. What it nonetheless shows is something the extremes deny categorically: ethnic integration (rejected as impossible or even undesirable by the hard right) and patriotic pride (often looked down upon by the progressive left) routinely coexist. Most fans, watching their multi-ethnic team carry the national flag, simply experience both at once and think nothing of it.

If the hard right and the hard left could climb down from their high horses long enough to watch a few matches, they might rediscover what the rest of us already know: that integration and pride are not enemies. As on the pitch, they can be teammates.

[john🎷colbrain @_night_brain__]

London's 12th tube line marches on, a marvel of technology and spontaneous order, despised by literally everyone

[Rajdeep Sardesai @sardesairajdeep]

My comment to Laura Loomer at end of her session at @IndiaToday conclave. #SayNoToRacism #IndiaTodayConclave26

[Emma @Emma_Mkr]

if you don't Londonmaxx at its worst (nov - march), you don't deserve it at its best (march & onwards)

[Aniket Panjwani @aniketapanjwani]

how rich do you have to be for "gap year in Buddhist monastery before applying to Harvard" to be in your option set

[Isaac Z. Martinez @isaaczmartinez]

1/
Hi, my name is Isaac Martinez. I am a PhD student in Economics at the LSE, and I wanted to share something personal. On July 6, 2025, I suffered a stroke while I was finishing my PhD. It was completely unexpected and changed my life. #EconTwitter #EconJobMarket

[Saniya Sayed @Ssaniya_]

Said “mereko” in front of a Delhiite and got a lecture that no such word exists in Hindi. I’m still confused though, because mereko toh lagta hai it exists.

[Rhys @RhysSullivan]

these gpt-5 numbers are insane 🤯

[TheLiverDoc™ @theliverdoc]

Good morning.

The weekend witnessed a massive hate campaign directed against me by the pseudoscientific Ayurveda community as well as large account Indian right-wing influencers including "fellow doctor colleagues."

They doxed my work place, threw religious slurs at me, morphed my images, made vulgar racist comments, defamed my family, called us organ traffickers, and named my public health awareness efforts "rabid."

By doing that, they have exposed themselves more. My work and it's importance have become even more valuable.

I appreciate and thank my follower-friends (you know who you are🫶) and doctor colleagues (you know who you are 🫶) here on Twitter for supporting me and helping my voice echo longer and stronger. The public support against pseudoscientific alternative medicine was even stronger and it gladdened me.

ONE event, and now everyone knows how dangerous alternative medicine such as Ayurveda and Homeopathy are. Everyone knows how the practitioners and their supporters are the real rabid cultists.

Why do I strongly oppose Ayurveda and Homeopathy and such alternative medicine practices? Because it has real world outcomes.

Shown in the image below are the various alternative medicines, herbal and dietary supplements that many people took because of advertisements, promotions on anecdotes and health misinformation on social media. They came to me with severe liver injury and some in liver failure for treatments. My team painstakingly retrieved these products from them. Sadly and to my terrible sorrow, most of these patients did not make it. They are survived by their young children or spouses, or aging parents only.

You think your massive hate campaign will deter me? It only makes me stronger. Keep 'em coming. You have no idea of the gargantuan beast you have created with so much hate. I'll keep educating people and public as long as I can, as much as I can. Jai Hind.

[Meru @MeruOnX]

This is exactly what I’ve been trying to explain to my fellow Indians who think I am overreacting. I’ve seen the amount of racism Gukesh faces from people outside India. Here is one from the official Norway Chess TikTok account which has been liked by thousands of people.

[sohom @AwaaraHoon]

@Adityakrsaha Kohli leaving RCB for MI/CSK to win the IPL, but RCB winning the trophy just the season after he left

[Mini Nair @minicnair]

Faiz Ahmad Faiz was arrested for sed1t1on and wrote the poem 'Hum Dekhenge' against General Zia-ul-Haq.

Today, anyone who sings the same poem risks being charged with sed1t1on in India.

Welcome to the Indian subcontinent.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

The problems in our society are not caused by migrants or refugees.

They are caused by an economic system rigged in favour of corporations and billionaires.

If the government wanted to improve people’s lives, it would tax the rich and build an economy that works for us all.

[Omar Abdullah @OmarAbdullah]

What the hell just happened to the ceasefire? Explosions heard across Srinagar!!!

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

MHA order : Union Ministry of Home Affairs issued an advisory to all media channels to refrain from using Civil Defence Air Raid Sirens sounds in their programs other than community awareness drives.

News Channels which used Sirens : Aaj Tak, India Today, ABP, NDTV, Times Now, Republic etc.

[haryana grande @itnamatsharma]

When did we lose the plot so bad that praying for innocent civilians to not die becomes the wrong stance?

[Omar Abdullah @OmarAbdullah]

Blackout in Jammu now. Sirens can be heard across the city.

[S lrfan Habib एस इरफान हबीब عرفان حبئب @irfhabib]

The iconic Karachi Bakery in Hyderabad is having tough time to prove that its founder is an Indian. A migrant from Karachi who founded it in 1950s. There are many others who do this to keep their emotional bonds alive. This madness should stop.

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

@jpsin1 A lot of accounts from Pakistan and RW accounts from India are sharing the same Simulation videos. 👌

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

No @KirenRijiju Sir. This is not a mischievous work by anyone. Nobody is creating fake accounts and sharing through journalists. This was tweeted by your own official handle and deleted later.
Here's the proof. Please check with the person handling your official account. ✌️