Rhetoric Reinforcement

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I was in San Diego last weekend for a soccer tournament. With two teenage sons who both play competitive soccer, I’ve been to dozens of tournaments, from Sacramento to Seattle, Dallas to Denver. After watching literally hundreds of games, I have come to one undeniable conclusion about soccer, and youth sports more generally: parents are assholes.

This observation comes as no surprise to coaches, referees, and assistants who are often subjected to the worst parental tirades. From the moms screaming “that’s a foul!” after every contact to the dads berating their kids to “be more physical!,” parental misbehavior in youth sports is well documented. To be fair, the vast majority of parents are well behaved, and even the problematic parents usually aren’t trying to be jerks. Their behavior stems from a well-intentioned desire to support their children. But there’s a fine line between supportive and psychotic. The term “fan” is derived from “fanatic” after all.

Of course, there can be a lot at stake at these events. This particular tournament was a national showcase with college coaches in attendance, recruitment and scholarships on the line. But it hardly excuses some of the more choice remarks I overheard just this weekend, including a thinly veiled ethnic slur, personal attacks directed at players, and a full-fledged conspiracy theory that the refs were favoring our team because we happen to be from California.

But this isn’t a post about parents in youth sports. It’s a post about how our partisan rhetoric gets reinforced as a result of our partitioning. See, it occurred to me as I observed the sidelines this weekend that the parental misbehavior at these events is representative of the political discourse in our country at large. What I’ve witnessed over the years is the level of anger and animosity can, in part, be attributed to how the parents are configured on the sidelines. Broadly speaking, parental fans can be arranged in one of three ways:

Integrated—In my opinion, the least cantankerous situations tend to be when the parents of each team are sitting next to each other. Even better is when parents of opposing sides have a chance to meet before the game starts. The best behaved of the three games we watched this weekend was when we met parents of the opposing team before the game. We learned where they were from, which player was their son, and how they were doing in the tournament. Although close proximity can sometimes go poorly with the most obnoxious parents, in general being close to fans of the other side is a reminder to be civil, to be friendly, that it’s just a game, that the other side is human too. The rhetoric is tempered, the vitriol is muted, the indignation is kept in check.

Clustered—More frequently, however, parents self-select into their respective sides. They naturally sit next to other parents they know or across from their team’s bench. In other words, they cluster next to their own fan base and apart from the fans of the “other” team. Time and again, this seating arrangement seems to intensify the rhetoric. Opinions get enthusiastically affirmed and normalized. Objections get reinforced and amplified. Parents, trying to demonstrate their support, get louder and more aggressive in their complaints. In an echo chamber that condones their behavior, their remarks and actions escalate.

Segregated—In my experience, the situation that encourages the worst in parental behavior is when the two groups of fans are deliberately segregated. Separated by sidelines or the midfield line into their own tribes, each aware of the other’s designated section. Sometimes, this seating arrangement is mandated by the game organizers, ostensibly to keep fans from misbehaving. I have mostly observed the opposite. Not only does each group have the behavioral reinforcement loop of clustering, but they are conscious of and react to the opposing fans. They double down on their vitriol, wanting to be heard not only by their fellow supporters but by the opposing fans as well.

These are the situations that can rapidly escalate, and when I have personally witnessed the worst behavior: a dad threatening to “go back to my car and get something to shut you up,” a mom who screamed “you’re a f*cking cheater” directly into the ear of a 15-year old player as he was throwing in the ball, even a dad who physically punched another dad (while, bizarrely, holding his own baby) and was subsequently arrested on the sidelines by local police. Similar oppositional escalation can be observed in professional soccer, including games where opposing fans are cordoned off in their own barbed wire section of stands, only to have taunts, chants, bottles, and other projectiles thrown at them. When the enemy is identified and dehumanized as an “other,” we know where to direct our rage.

The same phenomenon is happening in our country. We have gradually self-selected into our separate regions, media bubbles, and social norms. Like the clustered parents, we hear only political rhetoric that is familiar and comfortable, that reinforces our beliefs—an echo chamber that makes us ever more convinced we are right.

What seems to have gotten worse is, like fans at a soccer game, we are not just clustered by red states and blue states, but we are politically segregated. We are aware of what the other side is saying, or at least what our side tells us the other side is saying—excerpted in attack ads, political emails, and partisan cable news. Nothing activates our own side more than whatever distorted, misconstrued, “lies” the other side is supposedly espousing. The dialog has stopped being about thoughtful persuasion, proposing solutions, or finding common ground, and has devolved to become all about one thing: winning—the pure blood sport of it.

When this dynamic happens in youth sports, a good referee can regain control of the situation. Rather than throwing gas on the flames by shouting back at fans, penalizing players, and ejecting coaches, they keep their cool. They take the players aside, address the crowd, allow tempers to cool, and remind everyone it’s just a game. They encourage competition, but they remain impartial, upholding the rules that keep the contest civil. But this tempering force is largely absent in our political discourse. The news media is no longer interested in being impartial. Most outlets believe they need to be biased toward their political agenda or they’ll lose readers, viewers, and listeners to more overtly partisan outlets. Politicians no longer feel they can debate, negotiate, or, heaven forbid, compromise, or they will lose voters to more dogmatic loyalists. Each side is convinced it needs to yell louder with more outrage or they will lose—the same dynamic you see on the soccer sideline.

Unfortunately, we no longer live in an era in which we can expect our leaders to rise above the fray. Even if they wanted to, constant voter polling, fund raising, and data analysis tell them this is what works. The escalation of rhetoric is what breaks through the noise, what activates us. Fear and anger is what gets us to donate, vote, and protest. Until we change our behavior, we can only expect the same from our political leaders. So introduce yourself to your opponents. Share a bit about your background and listen to theirs. Recognize that inclusivity also encompasses political diversity. And let’s try to regain the shared sense of humanity and greater good that we need to solve the world’s most pressing problems.