Image I Getty

AN OLD WORK colleague of mine used to have an annual tradition that, at the time, I thought rather niche. Each year, he would take the day off work to watch the Superbowl. That was 15 years ago, at a time when the NFL’s biggest spectacle was not the global phenomenon it is today.

The event, which has grown exponentially in the years since, is now a big deal here in Australia, particularly the half-time show – a pyrotechnic showcase that highlights the intersection of sport and pop-culture, with recent performers ranging from Rihanna to Usher and Beyonce. These days it can stop an office, pub and family living room in the same way the Melbourne Cup used to do.

This year, interest in the Superbowl levelled up even further, colonising the zeitgeist in unprecedented ways, thanks to the burgeoning romance between Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce and America’s sweetheart, Taylor Swift, who was in the midst of her era-defining Eras tour.

Speaking of American traditions that have become a bigger deal here in Australia of late, last night I celebrated Halloween (okay, it began as an Irish pagan festival but it was America that commercialised it), hitting the streets of my suburb with hordes of other parents and kids to go trick or treating. I wish that had been a thing when I was a kid.

But perhaps the biggest, and certainly the most important day of the year on the US calendar, and increasingly here in Australia, is still to come: next Tuesday’s US Presidential election (Wednesday morning here in Oz).

To my surprise, I have friends who are planning to take the day off to watch the ‘action’.  It wouldn’t shock me if there are hardcore political junkies out here planning US election parties. And you can bet workers in offices around the country will be glued to their screens as the results begin to come in. Indeed, it may well be that the race that stops the nation next week is not the Melbourne Cup (happening next Tuesday), but the contest across the Pacific between a former prosecutor and a convicted felon. You can also wager that Australians, inveterate gamblers that we are, will be betting big on both races. How did we get here?

There are a few familiar factors in the Presidential race’s rise to become appointment viewing here in Australia. Globalisation’s relentless march means nations are more interconnected than ever before. The old economic adage that, “When the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold”, has never been more apt. As the most powerful nation on earth, the outcome of the US election has real-world consequences for global stability, geopolitics, trade deals and, if you factor in the environmental consequences resulting from contrasting approaches to combatting climate change, the future of the planet. The stakes are high and, when you really think about it, we all have ‘skin in the game’.

Trump on The Apprentice I NBC

Those stakes make our own election seem, in relative contrast, like a race for local council, replete with the folksy charm you might expect from a contest between political parties that, thanks to compulsory voting, largely compete in the ‘sensible centre’.  The ‘democracy sausage’ and general bonhomie around polling booths here on election day reflects the low stakes nature of the contest. Here, polling always falls on a weekend, though I doubt many people would take a day off anyway, except perhaps Victorians, who never saw an event they couldn’t use as an excuse to down tools – take next week’s horse race, for example.

Stakes, of course, create drama – assassination attempts, insurrections like the storming of the Capitol Building on January 6, unfounded claims about immigrants eating cats – which, in turn, requires characters. US politics has a few of them.

Barack Obama, in his eloquence and ability to deliver sermons filled with soaring rhetoric, invited messianic reverence among the chattering classes. Donald Trump, an apparent buffoon with a wannabe authoritarian despot complex and dystopian world view, is no less a compelling figure. This, coupled with his ability to harness grievance, particularly among blue collar workers and non-college-educated males, means Trump has a similarly devout following.

Joe Biden, perhaps due to his advanced age, has not been as arresting a personality as these two titans, but Kamala Harris has managed to give the previously ailing Democratic Party’s chances in this election a shot in the arm, after securing the Presidential nomination when Biden stepped aside. Harris electrified the Democratic National Convention in August and mobilised widespread pop-cultural capital by leaning into Charlie XCX’s Brat memes.

Harris’ embrace of pop-culture touchstones, like Obama before her, helps make the race more interesting to casual viewers. Celebrity endorsements are a big deal, at least at face value, though not always at the ballot box. This week, both LeBron James and Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Harris – you can bet the latter would’ve wounded wannabe strongman Trump – while Taylor Swift herself endorsed Harris earlier in the year. Trump, meanwhile, has received backing from the likes of Elon Musk and Tiger King star Joe Exotic, as well as former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan, who seems to jump at any excuse to rip his shirt off in front of a crowd of people.

All of this hype and hoopla underscores the pantomime-like qualities of the Presidential race, a dynamic that exists either because of, or despite, the stakes being so high – it’s difficult to determine which.

Either way, it makes for great theatre and compulsive viewing. Is that a good thing? On one hand, you could argue the personality-driven politics that leverages pop-culture associations, turns the election into a piece of content in its own right, helping engage people who otherwise might have tuned out.

It’s also a reflection of the times. We live in an era in which everything is entertainment. Memes are created in real time, seismic moments in history are harvested for content and then forgotten as we move onto the next thing. In the US that would be Thanksgiving, the one American tradition yet to establish a beachhead on our shores – watch this space.

That this election campaign has already featured three foiled assassination attempts – the first of which occurred in Pennsylvania back in July but seems like a lifetime ago – speaks to the speed of the campaign news cycle, the disposable nature of content and the resulting effect on our attention spans.

And that’s possibly the great danger here. When events of real magnitude are reduced to content fodder, when we approach viewing plans for the election as we might the Superbowl, you do have to wonder if we haven’t lost a little perspective.

Of course, to be in a position to view the race to decide the leader of the free world as entertainment, from afar – like a new season of a particularly bingeable streaming show or something to put a few bob on – highlights our privilege. Because the people for whom this election might have real and possibly devastating consequences – victims of global conflicts that hinge on US foreign policy decisions, illegal immigrants, people whose access to welfare might be threatened – don’t have that luxury.

Indeed, the sad irony is, they might not even be ‘tuning in’.

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