Leftists bristle at non-soccer related blowback against the U.S. Women's soccer team.

But these social justice warriors can't have it both ways.

Left-wing sportswriters (is there any other kind among those who veer into political/cultural matters?) are up in arms over the blowback against the U.S. women’s soccer team following its exit from the World Cup. Articles by Candace Buckner of the Washington Post, Alex Shephard of the New Republic, and Meg Linehan of The Athletic are good examples of the agitation.

The complaints they present are quite flawed, as we will see. To be fair, though, Donald Trump may have triggered some of them with this inane post — a case of trolling, I assume:

The ‘shocking and totally unexpected’ loss by the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team to Sweden is fully emblematic of what is happening to our once great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden. Many of our players were openly hostile to America — No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to hell!!! MAGA.

William Barr reports that Trump once told him that the secret to a good tweet is “just the right amount of crazy.” Trump’s post about the U.S. team contains plenty of crazy.

I agree with Trump that our once great nation is declining. But the World Cup failure of the women’s soccer team has nothing to do with the decline. America would be in the same shape if that decisive Swedish penalty kick had fallen a few millimeters short of fully crossing the goal line and the U.S. team had gone on to make a deep run in the tournament. It will be in the same shape if the U.S. team wins Gold at next year’s Olympics and then wins the 2027 World Cup.

Nor does woke equal failure in athletic competition. The all-conquering U.S. team of 2019 was woke. So are many of our most successful basketball players.

The 2023 team didn’t disappoint because it was woke. It failed to make a deep run for three main reasons. First, interest in women’s soccer has increased in many countries, and therefore a number of countries have caught up to the U.S. in the sport. Our female players simply aren’t as good in relation to the competition as they used to be.

Second, the U.S. team was plagued by an inordinate number of injuries to key players. Third, the team’s coach did a poor job.

Accordingly, the pushback against Trump’s tweet is justified. But the pushback from the left isn’t limited to challenging Trump’s tweet. It consists of two broader (and related) complaints.

First, critics insist that the World Cup is about soccer, not politics. Therefore, conservatives shouldn’t use the outcome of the tournament to raise their “culture warrior” grievances. The women on the team should be judged in soccer terms rather than on the basis of ideology, yet conservative critics have had little to say about actual soccer.

Second, the lefty critics find it hypocritical that some on the right who say they want America to be great nonetheless root against a U.S. national team. As Buckner puts it: “It’s ‘America First’ — unless the U.S. women’s national team is involved.”

Neither complaint withstands scrutiny. The problem with the first — that conservatives shouldn’t inject their politics into a sports competition —is that the U.S. women have made made their sport, in part, about politics. For some key members of the team, the fight for “social justice” is part of their brand.

The other day, Ali Krieger, an important member of the 2019 team who now provides soccer commentary, proudly said that the U.S. women are “about so much more than soccer.” The “so much more” is their quest to right alleged societal wrong.

Krieger is right about this, and I don’t have a problem with it. The saying “shut up and dribble” is offensive. Athletes have as much right to express their opinions as anyone else. If some people are stupid enough to give special weight to these opinions, that’s not the athletes’ fault.

But athletes can’t have it both ways. If they take controversial stands on hot button issues — transgender rights, Donald Trump, or whatever — it’s fair for people who strongly disagree with these stands to dislike the athletes and to say so. It’s also normal to note their failures, just as those who love the players’ expressions of views tout their successes.

What about rooting against a U.S. national team, though? In my post about the U.S. team’s exit, I said that, notwithstanding my negative view of key U.S. players, I wasn’t “churlish” enough to be happy with the team’s World Cup exit.

But being happy about the exit is neither unpatriotic nor inconsistent with an “America First” position. When U.S. players show disrespect for America — e.g. by not singing the National Anthem, kneeling while the Anthem is played, or declining to visit the White House — they forfeit any reasonable expectation of full support from conservatives who love America. We may choose to root for the team anyway, as I did, but there’s nothing wrong with choosing to root against it.

Love of country does not entail rooting for athletes one perceives as opposing its values, even if these athletes are representing the country.

Again, the athletes can’t have it both ways. They can express disdain and disrespect for America — that’s their right as Americans. But if they do, they can’t reasonably complain that some who love the country have turned against them.

I should add that once patriotism loses its force as a reason for conservatives to support the team, there’s not much reason to back it. With exceptions, I’m sure, this is an arrogant collection of players who are far to full of themselves..

In 2019, the aforementioned Ali Krieger declared that the U.S. “has the best team and the second best team in the world.” Maybe, but I prefer athletes who show a little more respect for their opponents.

The arrogance of 2019 carried into this year’s tournament. Lineth Beerensteyn, a star for the Netherlands’ women, said the U.S. women “had a “really big mouth” coming into the tournament. She explained:

The first moment when I heard that they were out, I was just thinking, ‘Yes,’ because from the start of this tournament they have already a really big mouth, they were talking already about the final and stuff.

I was just thinking, you first have to show it on the pitch before you’re talking. And I’m not being rude in that way. I have still a lot of respect for them. But now they are out of the tournament.

I’ll conclude by considering a few particularly lame comments in the three articles I mentioned at the top. The New Republic’s Shephard denies that U.S. women’s team members injected politics into their sport. This is the familiar leftist lie — the claim that there is only one party to the culture war.

As noted, Ali Krieger was honest enough to admit to, and take pride in, the fact that some key team members are social justice warriors. If Megan Rapinoe isn’t one, I don’t know who is.

Meg Linehan asserts that the backlash against the U.S. women’s team “is rooted in misogyny and sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia — all the antitheses to the things this team has stood for collectively and individually.” Like Krieger, at least Linehan is honest enough to admit that the team “collectively and individually” has taken political and cultural stances.

But the charges of misogyny, sexism, racism, homophobia, and transphobia amount to rote name calling. Linehan doesn’t try to substantiate any of them.

If the women’s team had taken no political stances, then misogyny might be one possible explanation for the animosity against it. If the team were predominantly black, it would at least be conceivable that racism is in the picture. But the team is predominantly white.

There’s no evidence that critics of the team care about the sexual, as opposed to the political and cultural, orientation of its players. Nor is there evidence of transphobia unless one believes that keeping men who identify as women out of female sports competitions and dressing rooms is transphobic. To most Americans, it seems more like common sense.

Buckner, a talented writer, argues that the 2023 team shouldn’t have been the target of conservative critics because they are innocents in the culture wars. It was the 2019 team members who were the “protesters,” she insists. This year’s team consisted instead of “pitchwomen.”

That’s nice alliteration, I suppose, but it rings false. The 2023 included veterans of the 2019 protesters, including Megan Rapinoe. And a number of this year’s starters declined to sing the National Anthem or place their hand over their heart while it played.

Buckner expresses her hope that the young members of the team will “continue the program’s tradition of speaking up on issues that matter to them off the pitch.” She also recognizes that if they do, they will continue to incur criticism from those on the other side of the political-cultural divide.

In this scenario, both sides — the players and their critics — will be acting within their rights as Americans, and neither will be behaving more unreasonably than the other in any formal (as opposed to substantive) sense.