Trump’s Plans for America 250 get Cooked, as the World Cup Shines
While Trump’s long planned propaganda party wilts in the heat, America embraces the World Cup.
Well, we’ve made it to America’s 250th birthday, and like most Trump-sponsored events, those in attendance will be lucky to make it out alive. Half the country is roasting in record-breaking heat, which is forcing the cancellation of America250 (™) events, like a massive parade in Philadelphia, and delaying Trump’s Great American State Fair in D.C. until temperatures drop to a reasonable swelter from a daytime scorch.
Even without the record-breaking heat throwing a wrench in things, America 250 has already been upstaged by a different marquee event: the World Cup. For weeks now, Americans have been glued to their TVs, packing sports bars and outdoor watch parties, and flocking to stadiums to watch soccer. Not even one of our top 3 pro sports. But here we are, with the US Men’s National Team taking their first knockout stage win in 25 years.
Naturally, Trump’s going to try to take credit for it, calling the US team the “best in the world” after the win over Bosnia and Herzegovina. But the success of this team comes in spite of Trump, not because of him. Half of the roster is made up of dual citizenship holders, foreign-born players, and children of immigrants. Coach Mauricio Pochettino is Argentine. This team is a repudiation of everything Trump stands for and is working towards. It could never exist in the world that Trump has tried to bring about with his brutal immigration crackdowns and isolationist foreign policy. You can’t take credit for the success of the team while simultaneously trying to eliminate the conditions necessary for it to exist.
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One of the more delightful features of the World Cup is the opportunity for foreign players and fans to discover our uniquely American culture, including such gems as Baja Blast, Waffle House, and Ranch dressing. It’s a testament to the fact that even after all the damage Trump has done to our reputation on the world stage, we still have culture (and food) that the world wants to consume. Hundreds of thousands of people have traveled from all over the world, which is a massive economic boost, by the way. Imagine how much more the world would embrace us if we didn’t try to scare them off with our roving bands of ICE agents and rampant gun violence.
This kind of global cooperation and collaboration is exactly the thing Trump and Republicans have been trying to kill with their xenophobic rhetoric and by taking a sledgehammer to the global order. And despite their best efforts, it’s not working. But the world does still value our culture, and we still want to embrace the world. It’s why you’re seeing massive crowds in the streets in Koreatown in Los Angeles to watch South Korea vs. Mexico, and why everyone you know is googling “where is Cape Verde?”
This is the America we’re fighting to protect. It’s the America that Trump is afraid of, because he’s not at the center of it. And this is the America we should be celebrating in our 250th year.
There’s noise in America right now. Donald Trump didn’t invent that racket, that chaos, but he sure as hell turned up the heat, cranked the burners, and walked away while the rest of us argued over who’s to blame for the smoke. Trump’s bet was loud and repeated that we were all small, that we were tribal, that we all would happily carve each other up into bite-sized resentments. But here’s the truth…Americans, for all our flaws, are a lot harder to reduce than that. We’re mutts, improvisers, stubborn bastards who, when it counts, tend to figure it out…sometimes late, sometimes messy, but rarely as dumb as Donald Trump thinks we are.
Two hundred and fifty years in, this whole experiment is still a high-wire act with no net, held together by people who don’t always like each other but understand, deep down, that the alternative is worse. Democracy isn’t a birthright you tuck in a drawer. American democracy is a job, the kind that ruins your shirt and keeps you up at night. Liberty costs something, it always has, and it always will, and every generation gets handed the tab whether they asked for it or not. So here we are, inheriting the mess and the miracle at the same time, tasked with carrying it forward for people we’ll never meet. Happy 250th, America. We are better, we are stronger, we are more resilient than Donald Trump will EVER give us credit for being.
My heart beats with this!!!!!
This we can celebrate: our
diversity and the things that bring us together!