People often complain that our politics are treated too much like sports. But perhaps it isn’t so — and we would be better off if it were true.
The illustrious career of Duke University’s Mike Krzyzewski came to a close earlier this month. The Hall of Fame basketball coach finished his 46-year career with 1,202 wins, the most ever, as well as five national championships. Coach K is widely respected, even by the (many) people who root against Duke in all of its biggest games.
Compare his resume with another leader of a blue team with a “D” logo. President Joe Biden, the leader of the Democratic Party, is the perfect point of comparison for Coach K. Biden became a senator the year before Coach K got his first coaching gig. Until recently, his career was a dud, with two failed presidential campaigns and a record of being “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Coach K was rewarded for success, landing the job at Duke after a successful tenure with the Army Black Knights. Biden was rewarded for decades of failures, moving from meme-worthy vice president to Democratic nominee to president when Democrats suddenly realized that Sen. Bernie Sanders was the only alternative.
Whereas Coach K’s career ended with a Final Four run, Biden’s career is ending with record-low approval ratings.
Sports reward success. Very rarely does loyalty to “our guy” win out over actual wins. Coach K would not have been given decades to fail at Duke the way Biden has failed in politics. Democratic politicians and party officials rarely cross Biden in public, even as he is leading them toward an electoral wipeout in November.
This is not exclusive to Democrats: The GOP seems poised to turn back to former President Donald Trump, the loser who lost to Biden’s hapless team in the first place.
Perhaps if we really treated our politics like sports, we would have more winners — fewer Bidens and more Coach Ks. Who knows? At this point, we might even be better off with basketball coaches running Washington, D.C.
