Why are there only news stories about Americans who don’t know geography or the World Cup or whatever? Americans are no more ignorant a people, on average, when you measure by race, than any other people. Anyway, I don’t trust these polls and stories as the subjects have no incentives for answering the questions.
BEFORE the World Cup started, we showed you footage of an American prankster, Baha Salamah, testing his compatriots’ knowledge of football.
The results were not impressive.
Since then, millions of Americans have leapt onto the football bandwagon, inspired by their team’s surprising run to the World Cup’s round of 16. They’ve been paying far more attention to the sport than usual. Surely they’ve learned something in the process?
Sadly, no. They haven’t.