America Has More in Common Than We Think
THE FXBG ADVANCE WEDNESDAY 7/22/26 MORNING READ
By Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
During college, I spent a term at the International College of Copenhagen, Denmark. Its mission was simple but profound: Bring young Americans and Danes together so we could see how much our cultures were alike, how much they differed, and that both realities were perfectly acceptable. We compared holidays, politics, humor, and family life. Danes were proud of their social democracy and local autonomy; we were proud of our constitutional traditions and frontier spirit. Denmark celebrates our 4th of July and I got to meet Hubert Humphry at the celebration.
What struck me was not that one society was “better” than the other, but that both were recognizable, decent ways of living. People worried about bills, argued about politicians, doted on children, and cared about their communities. It was my first serious lesson that America did not hold a monopoly on the “good life.”
After college, my journey became more classically American. I joined the Army, deployed to Vietnam, and later was stationed at Fort McClellan in Alabama. When I left active duty, I took a job with the Boy Scouts of America, which sent me deep into rural counties. There I met families whose members had lived in the same place, worked in the same local economy, and rarely left the county except for weddings or funerals.
I saw that rooted lifestyle again when I returned home to Pennsylvania. In many small towns, people’s world was their county, church, school district, and volunteer fire company. They were not hostile to the wider world so much as distant from it. The familiar rhythms of life were comforting, but that distance also allowed people to form strong opinions about places they had never seen and cultures they had never encountered.
My career did not allow me to stay put. As a federal civil servant and a member of the Army National Guard and later the Army Reserve, I moved frequently. In the mid-1980s, I returned overseas, this time to Germany. From there, my work and service took me across western Europe—from Norway and Portugal to Italy.
The lesson I had learned in Denmark held true. Every country had its distinctive culture, political history, scandals, partisan conflicts, and old wounds. Yet underneath those differences, people were consistently kind and helpful. Strangers offered directions, explained local customs, and wanted to know about life in America. They worried about their children, pensions, and elections. They cared about their national stories while going to work, coming home, and trying to enjoy an ordinary life.
I invited family members to visit Copenhagen, Munich, Rome, or Lisbon. The answer was often: “No, I like it here. I don’t need to see those places.” When I came home, I was struck by how little some loved ones knew about the countries where I had lived—and how much of what they thought they knew was incorrect. Beneath it was an assumption that only Americans lived truly good lives, while everyone else was struggling or yearning to be like us.
Later, my service took me to Kuwait and Bosnia, where I saw societies recovering from war, wrestling with ethnic tension, and rebuilding institutions. Trips to Central and South America and Korea exposed me to places American television often compresses into stereotypes. Yes, there was hardship, corruption, and fear. But there were also families making dinner, children playing soccer, neighbors helping neighbors, and citizens frustrated with politics yet committed to a better future.
All of that brings me to the recent World Cup, three-quarters of which was played on American soil.
For months, foreign and domestic commentators have described America as uniquely broken—hopelessly polarized, near collapse, and defined mainly by anger. Visiting supporters arrived primed by headlines about travel bans, immigration crackdowns, gun violence, and political turmoil. Some expected a cold reception or danger.
What their phones captured instead looked familiar to anyone who has spent time in a German village or Italian piazza. They posted videos of Americans offering directions, translating transit maps, recommending barbecue or diners, and explaining Buc-ee’s, Waffle House, and free drink refills. They filmed packed bars where Scots, Americans, and Colombians shared pitchers and songs, and crowds where locals and visitors swapped jerseys and stories amid a sea of colors and languages.
They found a country much like those I visited: proud, flawed, diverse, argumentative—and full of everyday kindness.
This is where my past and the World Cup converge. As a young American, I went abroad and discovered that people elsewhere lived good, complex lives. Foreign fans came here and discovered that Americans are not merely the caricatures they had seen online—not simply angry partisans shouting at one another, but neighbors and hosts who want visitors to enjoy their cities and feel welcome.
We should pay attention.
For years, a domestic business model has been built around keeping us angry and divided. It reaches across parts of the media, political rhetoric, and social media. Its message is simple: Your fellow citizens are enemies or dupes. They are beyond reason. They are destroying the country. There is no common ground; the only response is to fight.
My travels led me to a different conclusion. Families rooted for generations in rural Alabama and Pennsylvania worried about many of the same things as the Danes I studied with and Germans I worked beside: safety, jobs, schools, dignity, and community. Kuwaitis and Bosnians living through difficult circumstances wanted what many Americans want: less fear, greater fairness, and a system that does not grind them down. Across national lines, the basic aspirations were strikingly similar.
World Cup visitors reminded us that Americans also share more with one another than our daily news suggests. Their videos do not depict a nation locked in perpetual combat. They showed a place where people cheered with strangers, tried unfamiliar food, laughed at cultural quirks, and experienced both the abundance and anxieties of everyday American life.
If a Dane, German, Scot, or Brazilian can cross an ocean and find common ground with a Virginian in a stadium or bar, surely Virginians can find common ground with one another across town. If visitors can put aside their fears and stereotypes long enough to discover that we are not what our harshest critics claim, perhaps we can begin setting aside some of our own internal caricatures.
The lesson of this World Cup is not just about soccer or America’s image. It is about perspective. When we look only inward, we may believe our problems are unique and our virtues exclusive. When we step outside—whether to Denmark, Germany, Kuwait, Bosnia, or simply the next county—we discover that people everywhere live good, hard, complicated lives. We share far more than we think.
We can choose which voices to amplify. We can give less attention to those who profit from keeping us enraged and more to those who build bridges—whether they wear a uniform, a scout shirt, or a soccer jersey. The world has come here to watch a game. In the process, it is holding up a mirror. If we are wise, we will see not only our faults but our common ground—and resolve to stand on that ground together more often.
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Phil Huber is a retired Army Reserve colonel, a federal civil servant, and a retired consultant who writes on civic education. He lives in Fredericksburg.
