How Politics Became a High-Stakes Sport | Dr. Ben Darr

Political scientist and author Ben Darr joins the World XP Podcast to explain why American politics increasingly looks more like sports fandom than democratic participation. We discuss how Team Red vs. Team Blue turns voters into spectators, why political “winning” can become disconnected from improving people’s actual lives, and how campaign strategy, polling, prediction markets and social media reinforce the game. Ben also reflects on his own political journey from the right to the left and toward the center, how Iraq, Obama, Bernie Sanders and the COVID era changed his thinking, what he sees in today’s college students, and the ideas behind his book This Is No Game.
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Ben's Links:
This Is No Game: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Is-No-Game/Benjamin-Darr/9781803419923
Substack: contrariwise.substack.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@feistychess5499 ⁨@feistychess5499⁩
Dr. Ben Darr is Associate Professor of Politics at Loras College, in Dubuque, Iowa. He writes at contrariwise.substack.com and his areas of interest include politics, religion, and anything else controversial. He is also an avid chess player and the director of the Dubuque Chess Club, and has a chess channel on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@feistychess5499. Opinions expressed here are his and his alone, and don’t represent any institution affiliated with him. You can find his book, This Is No Game, at https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Is-No-Game/Benjamin-Darr/9781803419923.
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