World Cup euphoria, Brexit Blues, Patriotism and..... Melania Trump!

To what extent are we willing to turn our backs on real-life issues to
better join in a nationwide communion, our attention riveted on a team
of eleven athletic young men kicking a ball around a playing-field,
with millions of people staring at their every movement and for ninety
minutes or more, holding their breaths, overwhelmed in utter bliss in
the belief they are sharing a unique experience of comradeship?
I am a neophyte. I never believed I would ever watch a football match
to the end and had always despised the naïve masses. In a word, I was
proud of not being led like sheep, which was how I saw the crowds of
mostly men huddled in cafés during the period of the World Cup. Yet,
last week, a sprained ankle forced me to stay still for two whole days
and I thought to myself what a golden opportunity this is to appraise
the phenomenon. I started with the match between France and Uruguay.
It didn't take me long to figure out the rules of the game and
distinguish the main players but I didn't expect to feel so elated
when France scored a goal for the first time. Later on, when it
happened a second time, I was almost shouting and clapping my hands,
alone on my couch. When the match ended two-nil in favour of France, I
could see on my screen the delirious faces of French people and the
dismal look on the faces of Uruguyan supporters. The French were
brandishing flags, their cheeks painted blue, white and red, sometimes
even wearing wigs or clothes the colours of our flag. Such a
demonstration of sheer love for our country is anathema in France, and
is sometimes associated with the ugly and definitely uncool "Front
National", Marine Le Pen's party, a party most people would never
admit to supporting (even when they secretly do).
And yet, not only is it acceptable to be an arch nationalist during
the World Cup, but to be seen as favouring another team than one's
country's would be dubbed as treason, no less. It doesn't fail to
remind us of what happens in a situation of real war. And undoubtedly,
in the documentaries on the liberation of Paris in 1944 and 1945, the
faces of people in the overcrowded streets, wanting to celebrate their
release from fear and deprivation, didn't show more exultation than
those of the supporters of the winning teams. Thus, it does appear as
if the Word Cup acted as an outlet for our need to rise above
unsavoury and intricate real-life issues in order to connect with an
imaginary collective entity we call our nation.
This was plainly what the throngs of deliriously overexcited
working-class young men (and a few women) were expressing when
interviewed by Skynews after England had won the match over Sweden
last Saturday. They could at last forget all about the mess Britain
finds itself in as a result of trying to come up with an acceptable
Brexit deal, which is in itself an impossible task, given that, during
the campaign, pro-brexit arguments had had less to do with hard facts
than with this undefinable notion of nationalism, the same one that
makes the crowds inebriated with bliss each time their country scores
a goal.
Unfortunately for Donald Trump, the USA, having been eliminated at an
early stage, cannot rely on this subterfuge, although it would have
been handy to distract Americans' attention from the awkward (but so
refreshing) picture of Melania Trump turning her back to the whole
world with the words "I really don't care, do u?" scribbled on her
coat in big white letters while she visited a shelter for children
separated from their immigrant parents. Who is being the better
patriot?