I love soccer. I also hate Ann Coulter. So when I saw that Coulter had written a column citing the rise of soccer in America as "a sign of the nation's moral decay," I was drawn to read it as Luis Suarez is drawn to exposed human flesh.
What shocked me more than anything was how little it outraged me. I can no more be outraged by reality-divorced statements like "In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway" than I could by "The sky is green" or "Orange juice goes great with pizza." If blame is dispersed in soccer, nobody bothered to tell Roberto Baggio in 1994 or David Beckham in 1998. Much like no one told Steve Zakuani that you cannot suffer a major injury while playing soccer (you can find that video yourself on YouTube; there is no way I'm linking to it).
"Do they even have MVPs in soccer?" Answered by Google in 3 seconds. Yes, they do. They also have Ballon d'Ors and Golden Boots. And complaining about the length of a soccer game while defending American football is a bit like Ollie North accusing someone of making deals with terrorists.
Coulter's piece is a stunning example of the insularity of the right-wing media. They are simply telling each other what they already believe to be true. To address the errors of the pieces would be as futile as trying to explain the weak points of Diego Maradona's game to an Argentinian. To him, Maradona is God. To Coulter's audience, soccer sucks, global warming is a hoax, and Obama was born in Kenya.
The article also confirms what we already knew: talk of Republican "re-branding" post-2012 is dead in the water. Soccer is popular with young people and Latinos, two key groups in the Democratic coalition. Why not stick John Boehner in a rocket-pop USA jersey and see if those folks pay attention? Could there be a better opportunity for the GOP's brand of fist-pumping patriotism than a battle on the pitch between the Americans and the debt-laden free-loaders of Portugal? No. The priorities of aging white southerners must remain paramount, even when it comes to sports. FOOTBALL!
In the end, I can't help but smile at Coulter's rant. It reminds me of how the heated conservative opposition to the Affordable Care Act and gay marriage has dwindled to rote, futile mumblings about "killing jobs" and "traditional values." Obamacare is here to stay. So is marriage equality. And so is soccer.