After Megan Rapinoe attempted to kick a field goal instead of a soccer goal and lost the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team a great roar of excitement went up…from America.
Naturally, this has some people scratching their heads and others huffing and puffing over people cheering on the loss of someone they consider great. Megan Rapinoe fans fall into the latter category. For instance, Heath Mayo of “Principles First” shook his head as people celebrated the USWNT’s loss, claiming it was “evidence that these folks usually just put their *grievances* first–not America.”
People like Mayo fundamentally understand the reason why people are celebrating the loss of their own country’s team. It’s very simple.
The politics of the players is grievance-based, which people like Mayo only seem to have a problem with if it comes from anyone but a leftist position.
Rapinoe’s politics is the claim that women have it harder because the American system is biased against women. She claims that America is a country worthy of scorn and derision. She kneels during its anthem in public and then demands she is paid the same as men while not performing nearly as well as them.
Hers is essentially the belief that misogyny rules America, which means that the American people are a bunch of misogynists themselves who love nothing more than to keep women down. It’s a very broad, and generalized insult, and an unwarranted one to boot. The reason Rapinoe and her cohorts were paid less wasn’t the call of some woman-hating executives or culture, it was just pure economics.
As Forbes made clear back in 2019, men’s sports just generate more revenue, meaning more money for the players:
In the midst of all the frustration over the financial remuneration, some basic facts are left out of the discussion. The sponsorships, television rights, merchandise and other monies, which are generated for the prize money, is much greater for the men’s team compared to the women’s team. The prize money for the women’s 2019 World Cup was about $30 million, of which the winner takes home about $4 million. The prize money for the men’s 2018 World Cup was roughly $400 million and the champions took home $38 million. The men’s World Cup tournament generated over $6 billion in revenue for 2018. The women are estimated to have brought in $131 million in 2019.
This should now be a moot point for Rapinoe who achieved the goal of “equal pay.” Her grievances assuaged by the correction, she should be more than happy to salute the country that strives for equality, so much so that she’s not only getting the same pay as men, but she’s getting back pay as well. In fact, she’s getting $22 million worth.
But no. America is still a country not worth celebrating according to Rapinoe and her cohorts. Its sins are too many and too great for her to give her approval. It hasn’t met her criteria for a good country and as such, it’s a country worth denouncing and degrading in the public square.
Rapinoe and those who agree with her are activists before they are athletes. Their activism revolves around accusing America and Americans of social sins that they must pay up for, and even then, the forgiveness is withheld until the next social sin is made up for, and on and on it goes. Rapinoe’s activism is anti-American. She would see it fundamentally destroyed and then she would finally approve of it when it’s a pile of ashes.
And here we see the reason why people celebrate the USWNST loss. It’s because it wasn’t an American team, it was an anti-American team. It got there on America’s dime and wore America’s colors, but this was not an American team. It was the only team on the field whose sole purpose was to embarrass and degrade America outside the realm and spirit of the sport.
Its loss was a win for America. It was proof that anit-American entities still fail to bring down the greatest country that ever existed. Rapinoe’s failure deserves to be laughed at by the people she blamed for various social sins they aren’t even guilty of.
This is why people should celebrate the loss of the USWNST. Because it was a victory for America.