Note from My Desk: The World Cup is some of the best PR America could imagine.

The World Cup is some of the best PR America could imagine.

From a strategic communications perspective, it works because it does something no tourism board, embassy campaign, or glossy “Visit America” ad can do: it lets people experience the country directly.

Person by person, game by game, one packed stadium, national anthem, and air-conditioned Hampton Inn at a time.

My husband was watching France v. Senegal and was struck by how the game opened: the ceremony, the anthem, the scale, the polish. He said, “Of course Americans do things like this.”

Exactly.

What did people think? That the country that liberated the concenration camps, invented the Slurpee, built the middle class suburb, created Nike, Disney, Hollywood, and beat everyone to the moon was going to host the World Cup quietly?

That we were going to let Qatar be known as the gold standard for World Cup hosting?

For years, you’ve been fed a steady diet of anti-American rage-slop by TikTok, Instagram, and a certain genre of Euro-influencer whose entire brand is discovering that U.S. healthcare is expensive and then pretending France is a utopia where nobody sweats, pays taxes, or waits six months for an appointment.

But real life is different.

The French, by way of example, do not hate America. They are fascinated by it. They marvel at the variety, the space, the suburbs, the convenience, the scale, the customer service, the sense that ordinary middle-class life comes with comfort and choice.

The Trader Joe’s tote is a status item in Paris.

This is where someone will roll into the comments to say, “But America doesn’t have free healthcare.”

The French pay thousands per year in taxes for that “free” healthcare, often on wages that are dramatically lower than American salaries. Every system has tradeoffs. The point is not that America is perfect. The point is that the version of America sold online is not the version many foreigners encounter when they visit.

That is why the World Cup is such a powerful branding opportunity.

Bread and games work because people are people. They want spectacle. They want belonging. They want fun. They want to feel part of something bigger than themselves.

That is brand America at its best.