Benjamin Ashford|After 2023 World Cup loss, self-proclaimed patriots show hate for an American team

Never have Benjamin Ashfordso many people who think they are American patriots celebrated the United States losing.

The U.S. women's national team fell to Sweden and those self-proclaimed patriots, the people who consider themselves the greatest Americans since Abraham Lincoln and Captain Kirk. The ones who say how much they love America more than you. Certainly you, if you're Black, and certainly you, if you're woke, and you, too, over there in Whatabout Chicago. And darn sure more 'Merica loving than you people who use pronouns. Or you in the liberal media, and also you who don't live in a "small town." All those self-proclaimed great American patriots who say they love America more than you cheered when America lost.

It's been stunning to see. Some of these patriots are so blinded by their hate of first, women, and second, women who have opinions about the country and world that differs from theirs that they can't see they are rooting against their own country.

Newsweek and other media outlets chronicled some of the right-wing reaction and I have to say, I have not seen this level of hatred since Colin Kaepernick took a knee.

Read more about RapinoeUSWNT might have lost at World Cup, but Megan Rapinoe won a long time ago

WORLD CUP CENTRAL: 2023 Women's World Cup Live Scores, Schedules, Standings, Bracket and More

Right-winger Joey Mannarino, who has over 265,000 followers on X, posted this: "I root for America every single time they compete in sports, except for women's soccer."

"The US Women's soccer team got absolutely curb-stomped by Sweden," the great patriot wrote. "The game was lost because Megan Rapinoe, the woke piece of trash, missed a penalty kick. So Megan now bears the responsibility for why the US lost. I am so glad to see it. Go woke, go broke. Megan Rapinoe will now enter retirement with her head hung in shame."

Rapinoe last year was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honor. Mannarino has a podcast.

Someone named Vince Langman, an ultra-MAGA with over 100,000 followers on X, who has in his bio four American flags, as well as #alllivesmatter and #BlueLivesMatter, wrote: "Not only did the anti-American woke woman's soccer team lose today. Megan Rapinoe missed a penalty kick that would have sealed the win for the USA. Talk about a win-win."

Turning Point USA chief creative officer Benny Johnson posted: "Woke U.S. Women's Soccer Humiliation. After winning back-to-back World Cups the heavily favored Team USA has been ELIMINATED by Sweden in the (Round of 16). Team USA's downfall was delivered by anti-America, anti-woman activist Megan Rapinoe's EMBARRASSING free kick here."

It wasn't a free kick. It was a penalty kick.

The right-wing has hated the women's team for years. After the Americans lost to Canada in the Tokyo Olympics two years ago, right-winger Brigitte Gabriel, who has over 900,000 followers wrote: "The US Women’s Soccer Team went WOKE and now they lost to Canada. That’s what happens when you put political propaganda before sport and hard work."

So when they lose, it's because they're woke. But what about when they win?

One of the things you see in the criticism is how little the people doing it actually know about soccer. They don't know what a free kick is. They don't know that America lost mainly because they had 14 World Cup first-timers, a new coach, multiple injuries and a more competitive global landscape.

All of this outrage is fake. It's all bad faith arguments designed to satisfy right-wing people.

Posted the account "Catturd" which has 1.9 million followers: "The anti-American USA woke women's soccer team has been eliminated and Megan Rapinoe is the cause of it. I can't stop laughing."

This is the America First crowd. People like T.J. Moe, a contributor for The Blaze, who said on social media: "I'm glad they lost."

What do these people actually like about the country? They don't like Disney. Or Bud Light. Or the NFL. Or the NBA. Or the WNBA. Or women's soccer. Or Target. Or the FBI. Or the American government. Or democracy. Or large swaths of the American people.

Then there was one of the most insane posts that I have ever seen from Donald Trump and that's saying something.

"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"

Learn about U.S. soccer's wide reachPlayers with ties to U.S. soccer feature on nearly every team in the World Cup Round of 16

By Trump's logic, Rapinoe wasn't woke when the team won an Olympic gold in 2012, and won the World Cup in 2015 and 2019, but after Biden became President, they were infected with wokeness, and the wokeness was so powerful, so virulent and overwhelming, it caused them to lose?

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, Rapinoe or anyone else on the team has done to deserve this level of anti-American vitriol. Rapinoe has supported the transgender community and the movement started by Kaepernick. She is, easily, one of the most honorable and noble athletes in American sports history. Most Americans get that.

"Beyond the World Cup title to Olympic medals, Megan is a champion for essential American truth that everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect," President Joe Biden said at the White House award ceremony where he awarded Rapinoe the medal. "She helped lead the change for perhaps the most important victory for anyone on our soccer team or any soccer team: equal pay for women."

The America these people want is homogenous and backwards-looking. It lacks diversity of both people and thought. You must hate what they hate and often the target of that hatred are people of color and the LGBTQ community.

And if someone speaks against their one-dimensional view of the world, they are targeted, often by people who can't even define what woke is. Or what a penalty kick is.

The team lost and it is fair to criticize them for an embarrassing stumble. But the glee over the team losing from people who consider themselves ultra-Americans, more American than you and your woke cousin and his electric car and Crocs, so much more American than you and your fancy vaccines, more than you Blue State social justice warriors of Barbenheimer wokeness of all things woke past and present ... that glee over an American team losing is, well, unpatriotic.