American patriotism is alive. Leave it to the women to make the point…and with good old American swagger.
The survey says that pride of country has never been so low. Only 45 percent say they are “extremely proud” to be Americans.
The rest – I don’t see them crashing our borders to get INTO El Salvador.
That is, if you believe in surveys. This one got it all wrong. Patriotism is as high as ever, and members of the US women’s national soccer team proved it when, on Sunday, they beat the Netherlands to capture the FIFA World Cup, which is a big deal even if you don’t know much about soccer or women.
Even men, by the millions, watched a game that requires no bats or helmets and frowns on tackling.
That was quite a day. Americans of all kinds, and from all over, rooted for those women as if they were our daughters.
Nearly every TV set was on the channel that carried the game, and nearly every cab driver knew the score, and for some two hours there was harmony and healing, no politics, and when Megan Rapinoe scored, followed by Rose Lavelle, to notch it at 2-zip…an entire nation chanted USA…USA…USA.
It wasn’t just the winning. It was how they won, throughout the tournament. They took no prisoners.
Against Thailand, they kept running up the score toward a 13-nil finish, and celebrated elaborately after each goal, a style typical game to game to these women who roar.
If you think it’s excessive, they’ll tell you – too bad! This is who we are…we are Americans…we are the best…we are great.
If you don’t like how they celebrate, if you think it’s excessive, they’ll tell you – too bad! This is who we are…we are Americans…we are the best…we are great.
That works perfectly for President Trump. MAGA, Make America Great Again has been his pitch all along, and if Rapinoe and some of her teammates are not in his corner politically, the patriotism that they’ve ignited serves him as living proof that much of the country thinks as they do and as he does – zestful, brash, confident, and to heck with the rest of the world.
These women played to win. They played with an approach that was plainly scornful against any team, any nation, that thinks it can defeat Americans.
They scoffed the nations. Alex Morgan tauntingly “sipped tea” to the sidelines, to the stands, and to the cameras after she scored against England.
Deep inside every American, all Republicans, for sure, lives a breathing disdain, or indifference towards other countries.
This isn’t isolationist. It’s simply that we are tired of your troubles, which is why we started this country in the first place, and why the Declaration of Independence opens with “separating” ourselves from the cruelties of despots, and why even before that, Psalm 59, King David summons the Almighty to “mock the nations” that torment Israel.
Only with Israel (and once Canada) do we share common…well, common everything.
We still don’t know which fork to use, and we still don’t care.
In Israel they call it chutzpah, and here we call it attitude when we show the world who’s boss.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
He is the author of the international book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal.” His Holocaust to Montreal memoir “Escape from Mount Moriah” has been honored from page to screen at CANNES. His Inside Journalism thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” is being prepared for the movies. Contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com