Why the World Cup?
Sarah Vowel is a genius. I know. It’s sort of weird to invoke Sarah Vowel in connection with sports. Her genius is not in connection with sports, per se, but in having coined the term Partly Cloudy Patriot.
I am an American Patriot. I watch 1776 every July 4th. I vote in every election– even the off-cycle primaries. I pay my taxes and don’t complain. When I see construction crews building impressive works of infrastructure, I feel the warm tingly sense of pride.
Then there’s the other thing. I’m just a little bit competitive. Most humans are. And the senses of competition and civic pride are as inevitable as lust and kissing. When a scandal hit some nowhere state capitol, people will come out to preen for the cameras to tell the world that their state is the most corrupt state in the country Crazy. We San Franciscans are proud of our awesome our weather is.* People in Chicago are just as proud of how awful theirs is.
As an American, therefore, I’d like to brag about what our country does well– war– and what our country does poorly– non-militarized responses to international relations. But as a partly cloudy patriot, and a human being, I don’t want to root for high body counts. And I really don’t want to swagger to Greece about how we could have bailed them out if our Senate weren’t so dysfunctional**
If I want to feel that warm glow of national pride at kicking someone else’s ass… that leaves sports. Sports may have complicated rules, but the feelings they bring are not complicated at all. We root root root for the home team. If they don’t win it’s a shame. I watch Soccer every 4 years. I don’t know the rules. I watch curling every 4 years. I don’t know the rules to that, either. I do know that I will root for America at every chance.
Rooting for the home team is awesome. Doing it in a crowd is exhilarating.
*It’s perfect. Seriously. Not even joking.
** I let the Germans feel pride about that.
