Sport and the Quest for Unity: How the Logic of Consensus Undermines Democratic Culture

Abstract

In response to the political protest of National Football League (NFL) player Colin Kaepernick and subsequent controversial comments from President Donald Trump, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft declared, “There is no greater unifier in this country than sports and, unfortunately, nothing more divisive than politics.” Such a sentiment is commonplace in sport, whether it is about race, political affiliations, or responses to tragic events, and it quickly became an organizing theme for NFL owners as they sought to defuse the issue. Meanwhile, sports media and others echoed the call for unity and largely dropped discussion of the commitment to social justice that had originally animated Kaepernick’s protest. This essay argues that claims to unity are rooted in the logic of consensus, a value in democratic theory that offers an illusion of peaceful cooperation while denying important conflicts and differences. As understood through the rhetorical tradition and theories of agonistic democracy, athletic activism in the NFL has been important precisely because it disrupts the illusion of unity on which the national anthem ritual rests. In short, contesting unity and consensus seeks to identify communicative resources that facilitate social justice in and through sport.