Caffeinated Politics

America didn’t just lose a soccer game this week; I would argue it has lost its sense of proportion. How Donald Trump came to feel that he must be involved in a referee call in a World Cup soccer match is breathtaking. He felt so empowered that he called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to review the red card given to United States men’s national team striker Folarin Balogun in the team’s World Cup round against Bosnia-Herzegovina, calling it a “horrible” call. The theatrical absurdity of this issue and the use of the Oval Office to perpetuate this circus atmosphere underscore what is wrong in our nation.

This was just another example of Trump having a grievance and airing it for the nation, and in this case, the world. What makes me laugh is that if you listen to Trump, we are led to believe he was secretly officiating from the sidelines with a whistle and a rulebook. Like he would read a rulebook!

Everything about Trump is rooted in his need to be outraged about something. To the point that a mere soccer match becomes a proxy battlefield for aggrieved people. All of a sudden, people of all stripes were left to argue what it all meant. To his base of paperclips, Trump proved again to be an oversized magnet. (That line comes from Eric, a great conversationalist in our neighborhood.) In the pages of the newspaper or in talking segments on cable news shows, there was the familiar chorus of blame, suspicion, and all-out certainty from which side one stood.

So yes, America lost the soccer game against Belgium on Monday. The USMNT’s loss delivered the biggest soccer audience in American television history. The match averaged 30 million viewers, making it the most-watched soccer telecast ever in our nation. I think it was Karma kicking in, scoring big, as the United States was shelled like a peanut on the world stage. I would add that when Trump turned this into a morality play over a grievance, it could only have one fitting outcome. Our nation needed to lose. In the end, it was not the scoreboard that was the problem, but rather how Trump felt he had a role to play in something where he had none.

I suggest we remember that not every red card is a referendum on the state of the republic. Sometimes a game is just a game. And sometimes losing is a reminder that perspective is the one skill we keep forgetting to practice.