Actually, I gotta come clean. As much as I dislike Donald, he nailed it this time. F-ck those unpatriotic asswipes. You don't like the US and its citizens? We don't care for you much either.
BTW this wasn't another example of "right-wing politics" as the NY Times claims below, it was a jackass calling out another jackass (actually group of jackasses). Not me stupid, Trump!
Trump Cheers the Defeat of Rapinoe and the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team
The former president taunted a U.S. team after its defeat on the world stage.
By Maggie Astor, NY Times
Aug. 7, 2023
When the United States lost to Sweden in the Women’s World Cup on Sunday, many American viewers saw it as a painful collapse on the grandest stage — the sort of agonizing moment that happens in sports.
For former President Donald J. Trump, it was a sign of national decline.
The loss was “fully emblematic of what is happening to the our once great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media platform.
“Many of our players were openly hostile to America — No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close,” he added. “WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to Hell!!! MAGA.”
The taunt was an extension of a longstanding feud between Mr. Trump and Megan Rapinoe, the retiring soccer star who once refused to visit the Trump White House, and whose missed penalty kick contributed to the team’s loss. (After the game, Ms. Rapinoe summed up the miss as a sort of “sick joke.”)
But it was also a striking example of the unforgiving moment in right-wing politics, when a former president will taunt an American team competing on the national stage and relish the agony of its defeat.
Donald Trump. The former president is running to retake the office he lost in 2020. Though somewhat diminished in influence within the Republican Party — and facing several legal investigations — he retains a large and committed base of supporters, and he could be aided in the primary by multiple challengers splitting a limited anti-Trump vote.
Ron DeSantis. The combative governor of Florida, whose official entry into the 2024 race was spoiled by a glitch-filled livestream over Twitter, has championed conservative causes and thrown a flurry of punches at America’s left. He provides Trump the most formidable Republican rival he has faced since the former president’s ascent in 2016.
Chris Christie. The former governor of New Jersey, who was eclipsed by Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, is making a second run for the White House, setting up a rematch with the former president. Christie has positioned himself as the G.O.P. hopeful who is most willing to attack Trump.
Mike Pence. The former vice president, who was once a stalwart supporter of Trump but split with him after the Jan. 6 attack, launched his campaign with a strong rebuke of his former boss. An evangelical Christian whose faith drives much of his politics, Pence has been notably outspoken about his support for a national abortion ban.
Tim Scott. The South Carolina senator, who is the first Black Republican from the South elected to the Senate since Reconstruction, has been one of his party’s most prominent voices on matters of race. He is campaigning on a message of positivity steeped in religiosity.
Nikki Haley. The former governor of South Carolina, who was a U.N. ambassador under Trump, has presented herself as a member of “a new generation of leadership” and emphasized her life experience as a daughter of Indian immigrants. She was long seen as a rising G.O.P. star, but her allure in the party has declined amid her on-again, off-again embrace of Trump.
Vivek Ramaswamy. The multimillionaire entrepreneur describes himself as “anti-woke” and has made a name for himself in right-wing circles by opposing corporate efforts to advance political, social and environmental causes. He has promised to go farther down the road of ruling by fiat than Trump would or could.
More G.O.P. candidates. The former Texas congressman Will Hurd, Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the conservative talk radio host Larry Elder have also launched long-shot bids for the Republican presidential nomination. Read more about the 2024 candidates.
President Biden congratulated the team on Twitter: “I’m looking forward to seeing how you continue to inspire Americans with your grit and determination — on and off the field.”
“Your unwavering support means a lot to us,” the team said to its fans on Sunday. “Our goal remains the same, to win.”
Criticism of the team was common in the online right-wing ecosystem even before its loss.
Megyn Kelly, the podcast host, said that Ms. Rapinoe had “poisoned the entire team against the country for which they play” ahead of the game.
The right-wing activist Brigitte Gabriel wrote late last month, “I love America and that’s why I am rooting against the woke U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team this year.”
Richard Lapchick, the president of the Institute for Sport and Social Justice, drew a parallel between Mr. Trump’s attack on Ms. Rapinoe and his attacks in 2017 on N.F.L. players who, inspired by Colin Kaepernick, knelt for the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality.
After Mr. Trump’s criticism six years ago, “what was seemingly a dimming protest movement in the N.F.L. was suddenly reignited so that they had even owners and coaches” expressing support, Dr. Lapchick said.
“I think that his doing this again this week will reinforce the base of athlete activism that I think has grown significantly stronger in the last couple of years,” he said.
The conservative criticism has been focused on both Ms. Rapinoe’s political statements — including her support of gay and transgender rights, which Mr. Trump has attacked — and the women’s national team’s fight for pay equity. Mr. Trump and others disparage these stances as “woke,” the right’s catchall shorthand for progressive views on gender, race and other issues.
A recent article in The Washington Examiner, a conservative publication, accused the women’s national soccer team of appearing “far more concerned pushing a woke agenda regarding equal pay for female athletes and the rights of L.G.B.T. citizens than they have been with winning games.”
Ms. Rapinoe has been a target of the right since at least 2019, when she refused to visit the White House after the United States won the last Women’s World Cup. Mr. Trump criticized her at the time. She has long been outspoken, and she is among the athletes who have knelt for the national anthem.
While “anti-woke” attacks have reliably stirred the right-wing base, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll indicates that they don’t reflect most voters’ priorities.
A minority of the presidential candidates, including former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and former Representative Will Hurd of Texas, have urged Republicans to focus on concrete matters like inflation.
Then again, so has Mr. Trump — to a point.
“I don’t like the term ‘woke,’” he said in Iowa in June, adding, “It’s just a term they use — half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is.”
Mary Jo Kane, a professor emerita and founder of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota, suggested that the mere existence of Mr. Trump’s latest attack was “a reflection of the growth and the power and the significance of a cultural moment of women’s sports.”
“The fact that the former president of the United States is commenting on women’s sports — nobody used to comment on women’s sports,” she said. “The fact that this has become yet another arena that is culturally contested and commented on is, ironically and unwittingly, a demonstration of the role of women’s sports in our society.”
Maggie Astor is a reporter covering live news and U.S. politics. She has also reported on climate, the coronavirus and disinformation. More about Maggie Astor
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