On This Special July 4, Celebrate With America's Diverse, Inspiring World Cup Team
Americans seeking inspiration during this anniversary of independence should turn away from the nation’s capital, where Donald Trump’s narcissistic celebration provide only national embarrassment (and perhaps a few laughs). Look instead to the World Cup, where the performance of the US Men’s National Team is renewing the patriotic pride and national solidarity of a free people – led by players whose diversity and citizenship stand against the anti-immigrant bigotry of the current regime.
At a time when Trump and his xenophobic henchman Stephen Miller shriek incessantly about immigrants “poisoning” the nation -- and just vowed to continue their unconstitutional crusade against birthright citizenship – the USMNT is a living testament to true American values.
Under the motto “One Nation, One Team,” their roster is one of the most diverse in the world. The 26 players on the World Cup squad are not only interracial, with 12 Black and three Latino players, but include six born overseas to military families, a dozen with immigrant roots in eight other countries around the globe. Team USA, like the nation it represents, includes an extraordinary global array of languages and cultures, with players who learned the sport both in their home country, like Gio Reyna, who grew up in suburban New York, or team captain Christian Pulisic, raised in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Malik Tillman, who spent his boyhood in Bavaria on a German youth team.
And then there is Folarin Balogun, born by accident in Brooklyn when his Nigerian mother, on her way back to England, was told that her pregnancy was too advanced to fly safely. Like so many of his teammates, the hugely talented Balogun, chose American citizenship and feels a special responsibility. Having scored two goals for Team USA before he got a red card in last week’s victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina, he has said, “To represent the United States means a lot. I just hope I can bring that prestige and winning mentality over into soccer.”
While American fans thrill to the play of Balogun and his teammates, lovers of the beautiful game who have flocked to our shores have found an America starkly different from what Trump’s vulgarity and bile led them to expect. Or what the dimwits at the Department of Homeland Security intended when they post ultra-nationalist “OUR SOIL” memes on social media ahead of World Cup matches.
People from all over the world are discovering a generous and inclusive brand of American greatness – not in the blustering and domineering Trump style, but in the beautiful welcome extended to the global visitors and their teams, from sea to shining sea. It could be seen in the boisterous hospitality encountered by the Scots in Boston, where they emptied the taverns of beer or the huge crowds who greeted the Japanese in Nashville.
But perhaps the most poignant example is the Algerians who found themselves Lawrence, Kansas, a heartland city that welcomed a team from a nation that Trump himself had once stigmatized. The residents of Lawrence embraced Team Algeria with astonishing enthusiasm and grace.
Indeed, it was the Kansans who expressed sincere thanks for a moment on the world stage brought by the visiting Algerians. “We’re very grateful to Algeria,” said one Lawrence resident as the team departed for a match in Canada. “We’ve loved getting to know your country and we wish you all the best.” During their final group-stage match against Austria, the Algerians unfurled a big banner behind their goal, “Thank You Lawrence.”
That is the America of our better angels, the city on the hill we have longed to become in our highest aspirations, the nation of ideas and ideals that the crooks and criminals now ruling us have aimed to suppress. What happened during this World Cup tournament will be remembered long after Trump’s humiliating “Freedom 250” is mercifully forgotten.Joe Conason is founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo. He is also editor-at-large of Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative reporting organization formerly known as The Investigative Fund. His latest book is The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism (St. Martin's Press, 2024). The paperback version, with a new Afterword, is now available wherever books are sold.
