And it works, too, which makes our choice even weirder. In the run-up to the Russia World Cup every soccer podcast was wringing its hands about covering it despite Russia's human rights record and by the end they were all like: "Russia really pulled it off! What a great experience!"
Morgan Clendaniel
Other authoritarian countries use the World Cup and Olympics to solidify their rule and project counter propaganda to the world that they aren't "as bad as you were told". At risk of projecting rationality on this regime, it seems the goal here is to intentionally isolate the USA w/ hostility.
