Why it matters that Trump taunted the U.S. women’s soccer team (again)

When the United States’ women’s soccer team came up short at the World Cup, plenty of American fans were naturally disappointed. Donald Trump was not.

In fact, the former president published this missive to his social media platform soon after the game wrapped up.

So to recap, Trump believes President Joe Biden is somehow to blame for the USWNT falling short. He also feels comfortable questioning the players’ patriotism, taunting Megan Rapinoe, attacking the ideologies of athletes he does not know, and asserting that his own country is “going to Hell.”

The Republican published his harangue yesterday, on Aug. 6. Oddly enough, almost exactly two years to the day earlier — on Aug. 5, 2021 — Trump also lashed out at the U.S. women’s soccer team after they "only" won Bronze medals at the Olympics.

“If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of Leftist Maniacs, wasn’t woke, they would have won the Gold Medal instead of the Bronze,” the former president declared in a written statement. “Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has.... The woman with the purple hair played terribly and spends too much time thinking about Radical Left politics and not doing her job!”

He added that he wanted to see “Patriots” replace “the wokesters” in future games.

What Trump seemed to embrace was the idea that Americans should root not for their country’s athletes, but rather, for conservatives and against liberals. If some of the women soccer players were on the left, the Republican believed they deserve to be derided and mocked for their beliefs — and their setbacks on the pitch should be celebrated and blamed on their politics, and quite possibly even their president.

All of this came on the heels of other Republicans also taking cheap shots at the women’s team at the World Cup: After players were seen standing-but-not-singing during the U.S. national anthem, many on the right tried to turn this into some kind of strange scandal.

Former Ambassador Nikki Haley published a message online a couple of weeks ago, for example, that read, “The US women’s soccer team is living the American Dream. They were born in the freest, fairest country in the world that has rewarded their hard work. They should remember that blessing & the men & women (like my husband) proudly defending it next time the national anthem plays.”

There was no real point to criticisms like these. Those who watch sports have seen plenty of teams standing for the national anthem, but not singing, ahead of a game, and no one ever tried to turn it into a culture war skirmish until last month.

But what stands out for me most is the degree to which this is a case study in how GOP politics operates: Assorted Republicans try to get to Trump’s right, only to discover just how difficult that is.

Haley thought she’d score a few cheap points with her party’s base by going after women’s soccer players’ patriotism for no reason, only to have Trump come along, celebrate his own country’s loss, and blame the outcome on the Democratic White House.

How can Haley and her cohorts keep up with such nuclear-grade nonsense? The answer is, they can’t.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.