"Hipster patriots," a sorry lot

The World Cup is coming to the U.S. next year. In this Washington Post op-ed, Will Leitch suggests that the unpopularity of the U.S. soccer team among its fan base might mar the event. He writes:

The team, which just got smoked by Switzerland in a friendly on Tuesday [of last week], is on a four-game losing streak, its longest in 18 years. . . .

But there is a larger crisis for the team, too — something that strikes at the core of what it means to support a national team in the United States right now. What does it mean to cheer for an American team on a global stage in the current political climate? Against teams from Latin America? I dunno: How do you feel about it?

I feel good about it, thank you. However, Leitch doubts that this is the case with the fan base that has supported the U.S. team in the past.

Who comprises that base? “Hipster patriots,” says Leitch:

Thousands of young urbanites, with their tattoos and their beards and their craft beers, [who] would head out to national team games dressed like Benjamin Franklin or bald eagles while screaming “I Believe That We Will Win!” at the top of their lungs — a sort of ironic nationalistic cosplay that, in the end, did actually make you feel a little patriotic.

The little bit of patriotic feeling associated with the U.S. soccer team started to erode with the rise of the MAGA movement, says Leitch. And now, with the team performing poorly, he believes it’s a thing of the past.

He’s probably right. But what does it say about hipster patriots if a four-game losing streak and unhappiness with our politics are enough to make them turn away from the national soccer team?

A four game losing streak, incurred while playing second and third stringers, is nothing. (And by the way, the U.S. team has won two matches in a row since Leitch published his column.) The Washington Nationals just ended an 11-game losing streak. The Washington Wizards had two 16-game losing streaks this season. No true sports fan would stop rooting for these teams on that account.

Nor should discontent with the Trump administration cause soccer fans to turn away from, or against, the U.S. team. I couldn’t stand Presidents Obama and Biden. Yet, I rooted for our World Cup teams in 2010 and 2014, and was disappointed when the U.S. failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.

Hipster patriots would probably counter that the Trump administration is one or two standard deviations less normal than those of Obama and Biden. But even if this is true, why should it affect how one views U.S. national teams? It’s not the fault of the players or coaches that America elected Trump. In fact, a number of U.S. soccer team members have the kind of immigrant background that appeals to hipsters.

I can think of only one answer to my question. Many American leftists are so consumed by politics that they let their views affect realms of their lives that, rationally, have no connection with politics. For these folks, politics and ideology are everything. Nothing exists independently of them.

This by the way, is the attitude of a fascist. As Mussolini wrote in The Doctrine of Fascism:

For the fascist, everything is in the state, and no human or spiritual thing exists, or has any sort of value, outside the state. In this sense fascism is totalitarian, and the fascist state which is the synthesis and unity of every value, interprets, develops and strengthens the entire life of the people.

If American hipsters are going to stop supporting American national teams because they think the country is on the path to fascism, the least they could do is to shed their own fascist-tending attitudes.