Americans rooting against US at World Cup don’t know difference between patriots, traitors
The U.S. women’s soccer team is gone from the 2023 World Cup, and across the land there was much rejoicing. This land, I’m saying. Right here, in the good old U-S-of-A. People don’t just seem happy the American soccer team was banished from the World Cup. They are happy.
Patriotism means different things to different people.
To some people, patriotism is using the American flag as a pair of shorts. Never mind the stars are wrapped around their rear end and the stripes are covering up their, you know. Whatever’s in the front. To some people, wearing a flag around their private parts isn’t disrespecting the flag. To some people, this is:
Kneeling for the anthem to protest an America that can do better.
To some people, America is good enough the way it is. Well, the way it was. You know, back in the days when America Was Great. To those people, Megan Rapinoe is not a patriot. To those people, she hates this country.
To those people, it is good Sweden beat the U.S. women’s soccer team.
Those people don’t understand the difference between patriots and traitors.
U.S. flag as a bikini — 'Merica!
You’re not moved by any of this, are you? You’ve decided, and maybe you agree with what you’ve read so far, you’re nodding, because of course it’s strange — it’s awful — Americans would root against an American team and think they’re on the side of right. You nod because what else is there to do? Cry?
Would that work?
It’s funny how the same people show up on the same side of every political sports argument, isn’t it? The people who are thrilled the U.S. women’s soccer team has been banished from the kingdom, they’re the same people who weren’t happy President Joe Biden made a deal to rescue Brittney Griner from a Russian prison. Why weren’t they happy? Because Griner has knelt for the anthem.
What Griner did not do is wear the flag as a bikini bottom, as I’ve seen. She did not post pictures of the U.S. flag with Donald Trump lovingly photo-shopped into that spot where the 50 stars should be, as I’ve seen.
She did not design, sell or purchase a U.S. flag that is less red-white-and-blue and more … blue. You’ve seen these flags, tinted blue, with a dark blue line in the middle. “Back the blue,” is what that flag is saying, and while I myself am grateful for the majority of police officers who do a thankless, dangerous job for my benefit — I thank him or her, every time I see a cop — can we not turn the U.S. flag into worship of any person or institution other than the country?
That’s where this whole disconnect lies. People who kneel for the anthem — who protest the way our country treats Americans who don’t look, love or worship like those who settled here centuries ago from England — aren’t loving anything but the country where they live. They aren’t turning the flag into an avatar for a certain president or a certain civil occupation.
They aren’t putting the flag in the letters FORD, as I’ve seen on the back of some trucks.
They aren’t flying the biggest U.S. flag they can find from the window of their car, something a psychologist would call overcompensation.
9-11 blood money, good; kneeling for anthem, bad
It’s the same fault line in golf. On one side are folks like me, folks who are disgusted some of the best, richest golfers in America would leave the PGA Tour to play for the LIV Tour, which is backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which the best U.S. government intelligence has decided is the same group that funded the 9-11 attack on our country.
People like me, I think of Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau as unpatriotic, as selfish, as soulless.
People on the other side, they root for Mickelson and Co. — because, they say, let’s be honest: You’d take the money too.
No, traitors, lots of us would not. Lots of American golfers did not, because principles are especially important when you actually have to use them. Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas — they have principles. They also have enough money. They don’t need PIF blood money.
Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis needs unholy Middle East money, selling his soul and 5% of his stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment to Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. An IndyCar team, the one run by McLaren, needs PIF blood money. Oh sure, McLaren is funded by the PIF and another noxious Middle East government, the sovereign wealth fund of Bahrain.
People like some of us, we think this is not OK.
Doyel: Middle East regimes creeping into US sports. What could possibly go wrong?
People on the other side, they think Brittney Griner should rot in jail and Megan Rapinoe should cry herself to sleep because they are the traitors. The real patriots, in the eyes of folks on the other side? The American athletes who willingly accept money from the same people who backed the 9-11 attacks on America. The American fans who cheered for Sweden to beat the United States in soccer.
Before you start accusing me of making a straw-man argument — a tool of the illogical, who so badly want to win an argument they invent someone in opposition to mock — make sure you’re right. Do your own research, as some of you are fond of saying. People like this, people who use straw-man arguments, they start sentences with words like, “So what you’re saying is…” Or words like, “So by your logic…”
Run from those people. Run to Google and type in “Megan Rapinoe” and “patriot.” Or look at the comments below a story like this one in the Washington Post, from Melbourne, about the U.S. women’s soccer loss to Sweden. Here’s a taste, a small one, because otherwise I might get sick:
From patriot alpha480v: “Good. Hard to root for a team that disrespects the flag the way they did.”
From patriot Sugarldtx: “Poor babies. Maybe if the team respected the national anthem. Have pride in your nation.”
From patriot Enrique S: “Actually rooting against USA haters. The team needed to focus more on sport than politics.”
Or from the Truth Social site, from a patriot named realDonaldTrump: “Many of our players were openly hostile to America — No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to Hell!!! MAGA.”
You cannot make sense of those comments, just as you cannot make sense of the sight of American citizens scaling the walls of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, brainwashed into believing what they’ve always wanted to believe — that America has become too different, too multi-cultural, too diverse. Make America Great Again means reverting to the 1950s when people of a certain race, sexuality or gender knew their place.
All the evidence in the world of an actual U.S. President trying to overturn an election — including statements from his own Vice President — cannot sway people who believe Brittney Griner and Megan Rapinoe are traitors, Phil Mickelson and Ted Leonsis are patriots, and a U.S. flag should be respected by athletes as fans wear it proudly around their private parts.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Americans rooting against U.S. in World Cup, and THEY'RE the patriots?
