Politics and Sports Have Become Indistinguishable

Forget fantasy football. Now you can play “fantasy politics”.

Editor’s note: Registration for the 5th season of Fantasy Politics 2020 ends Sunday, September 1st, 2019 at midnight. Pick a team name and select three candidates for your lineup under the $20,000 salary cap who you think will earn the most media attention the following week. Jump to the middle of this post for more information on the rules and how to play.

FiveThirtyEight recently posted a quiz asking its readers to distinguish between quotes taken from sporting events and quotes taken from political commentary following this summer’s Democratic debates. For example, this quote:

“He got into the fight. His team will be happy that he showed up, that he responded, that he fired back.”

Sports or politics? Politics, believe it or not. John King said this about Joe Biden during an appearance on CNN after the second night of the second Democratic debate.

Even FiveThirtyEight staffers, well-versed in politics, sports, or both, couldn’t tell the difference. They labeled the quote correctly about 60% of the time.

Comparing sports and politics is not new. Covering politics like a sporting event seems to have been around at least since the 1976 U.S. presidential election, when it…