Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, “It’s Not U.S. 1994, but It’s Something” | New York Times

On June 10th, 2026, IPK Fellow Joshua Jelly-Schapiro penned a guest essay for the New York Times titled “It’s Not U.S. 1994, but It’s Something.” Read the excerpt below, then click for the full article.

In 2026, the world doesn’t look like we hoped it might from the sunny vantage of the early 1990s, when history still felt like it was moving in a positive direction. The United States, which seemed destined to be increasingly open-minded, is more closed off. But the return of the World Cup, a competition founded in the same era as the League of Nations and involving a sport that Americans have now learned to love, will still channel conflicts between countries into “peaceful contests in the stadium,” as Jules Rimet, the man who masterminded the competition, once put it. As important, it will offer us all a chance to experience, even if just for a moment, a mighty form of communion.

Read the full article here.

Illustration by Harriet Lenneman.