The antidote to Megan Rapinoe's fake anti-patriotism

Despite her lackluster performance Sunday, Megan Rapinoe is hardly to blame for the U.S. women’s soccer team’s loss to Sweden. She didn’t take to the field until the game went into extra time, and her penalty kick miss was one of three that led to the team’s narrow defeat. And yet, as usual, in the aftermath it was all about her.

In many respects Rapinoe is a standard-issue sports star you love to hate: she’s rich, arrogant, entitled, and seems to care more about building her personal brand than supporting her team.

What makes Rapinoe particularly vexing to her detractors is how she’s laundered these unsporting qualities as political activism. There may be no “I” in team, but you better believe there’s at least one “LGBTQ” – and it’s Megan’s duty to remind us of this over and over. Rapinoe’s long-standing refusal to sing the national anthem at the World Cup’s opening ceremony (a practice that spread to all but three of her teammates this year) has also kept her in the news.

What exactly is Rapinoe protesting? Well, everything, if you take her word for it: “extreme poverty … homelessness … mass incarceration … discrimination against people of color, and police brutality.” Also Trump, back when he was in office.

One wonders to what extent these rather vaguely defined problems must be “solved” for Rapinoe to lay down her cross and take pride in representing her country. And if her methods are effective at anything besides burnishing her reputation as athlete-activist. In this cynical age we're quick to suspect anyone too eager to wrap himself in the flag. But we should also be wary of those, like Rapinoe, too eager to trample it.

What's the harm, after all, in a little shared national pride? This kind of pride at least has the benefit of emphasizing what unites us, rather than what divides us. Rapinoe misses the target here as well: we don't wait to love America until we fix it; we fix America because we love it. Patriotism doesn't require a purity test.

That said, it doesn't hurt to point out the irony of an America-first politician sporting an Old Glory lapel pin made in China. The good news is that if you dig a little deeper, you'll discover a number of manufacturers committed to producing high-quality American flags here on U.S soil. New Jersey's Annin Flagmakers was founded in 1847; storied concerns like Cincinnati's National Flag Company and Pennsylvania-based Valley Forge have also triumphed over decades of cheaper imports. More recently, upstarts like Allegiance Flag Supply have brought a nimble, entrepreneurial spirit to the business.

I can't say Megan Rapinoe's posturing is completely alien to me. As a recovering liberal, the sight of an American flag on display at someone's house used to strike me as weirdly uncouth. "Yes, yes, we live in a wonderful country," I thought, "but do they have to be so in your face about it?" Now I see humility, gratitude, and joy. And, increasingly, a small but tangible investment in our nation's future.