America’s World Cup Runneth Over

Audio By Carbonatix

For the last few weeks, I’ve been enjoying an event that isn’t actually taking place on the field.

Sure, there have been soccer matches. But the real entertainment has been watching the world discover America.

Friends—the world came to America and largely liked what it found. 

If only our political captors would allow us—the citizenry—to do the same, to enjoy our country.

The Scots marched through Boston with bagpipes.

Dutch fans filled entire stadium sections in coordinated orange chants.

Japanese fans quietly picked up trash after matches because that’s simply what they do.

And Americans, in return, have been reminded that unique cultures are not problems to be solved. Unique identity and culture are not pox on us to be healed and melted away in our giant ridiculous pot.

They are gifts to be enjoyed.

For years we’ve been told that strong cultural identities are somehow dangerous. 

Or at least we have been told that ours is.  A thing to be grieved and repented. 

Everyone else’s culture though? They are glorious and good. But the second Americans feel patriotic pride or protective instincts…Fascists! Nationalists! While we offer halal only lunches to the children of ranchers and farmers and have Islamic calls to prayer blasted on our streets. 

In our Marxist adrift America, national pride is suspect. Traditions should be softened, flattened, abandoned, and blended until nobody stands out and nobody offends. If homogeny is best and bland is best, why am I crying watching the Scots march on Boston in kilts playing their songs of old?? Crying and not one single time wishing I was a Scot, but wishing desperately that they get to remain to be. 

Then the World Cup arrived.

And suddenly everyone is cheering for exactly the things we’ve been told to erase.

The Scots are Scottish.

The Dutch are Dutch.

The Japanese are Japanese.

The Americans are American.

And everyone seems to be fine with it and having a wonderful time.

The internet has been filled with visitors marveling at things Americans barely notice anymore.

The free refills.

The crushed ice.

The portion sizes.

The giant pickup trucks.

The breathtaking national parks.

The friendliness of strangers.

The sheer scale of everything.

And of course, Buc-ee’s.

If extraterrestrials ever visit Earth, I suspect someone will eventually take them to Buc-ee’s and simply explain, “This is what happens when freedom, brisket, and engineering get married and have a love child.”

What has fascinated me most is how much goodwill has been generated by ordinary interactions.

Not speeches.

Not diplomacy.

Not government programs.

Not obnoxious celebrities in their struggle sessions, weeping over how ashamed they are of their birthright. 

People meeting people. 

That’s the secret ingredient. Encountering each other. Not invading, not conquering, corrupting, or defrauding. Observing us in our element and us observing they in theirs. 

Travelers discovering that Americans are often kinder than advertised.

Americans discovering that the world doesn’t hate us as much as they have tried to convince us it does. 

It turns out many of our supposed enemies are just people trying to find parking and figure out where to buy sunscreen.

Imagine that.

For decades we’ve been encouraged to view ourselves primarily through the lens of our failures.

Our history.

Or rather, only through our selective and revised history. 

Our flaws.

Our divisions.

Our shortcomings.

And yet visitors keep arriving and seeing something else entirely.

Not perfection. But abundance.

Generosity. Opportunity. Optimism. Humor. Humility. Hospitality. 

That’s who we are and always have been—a nation imperfect enough to criticize and correct itself and prosperous enough to be generous to the world anyway.

I don’t know how economists will calculate the value of this moment. I don’t know whether it changes a single vote in the next election. I don’t know whether it shows up in any official report. And I am certain that Trump will never be given the credit due for it.

But I suspect something valuable has happened.

Millions of people have experienced America firsthand rather than through headlines, rather than through the forced filters and lenses of a media and ruling class that benefits from our division and distress. 

And millions of Americans have been reminded of something we once knew instinctively.

We are extraordinarily blessed.

Not because we are better than everyone else.

But because we have inherited something remarkable.

The appropriate response to that inheritance isn’t arrogance. Or self-emolation. 

It’s gratitude.

The world has spent a few weeks reminding us of what we’ve forgotten.

America is still a pretty amazing place.

And perhaps what we need most right now isn’t another lecture about why we should hate one ourselves and each other. 

Perhaps we need a little more gratitude.

And a little more goodwill.

Both, it seems, are overflowing from our world cups.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!