What soccer might do

Scorching afternoon at the association pool, and a gaggle of boys are playing a game, down the way. Hard to say what it is, exactly. But it somehow involves geopolitics -- which is to say, they're all picking countries to represent.

"I'm North Korea!" one kid sings out.

"Russia!" pipes another.

I wait in vain for a Canada or a Mexico or a Germany, or an England. It never comes.

Democratic republics, it seems, just aren't where it's at these days. Traditional American allies, ditto.

And, yes, OK, so I am reading way too much into child's play. And probably reading it wrong,  besides.  But it is a measure of Our Only Available President's new America, and the escalating and corrupting hold of his ranting, Ugly American demagoguery, that American boys now find it cool to be murderous totalitarian regimes, even in jest. Hey, the President's tight with them, right?

Nobody wanted to be the Nazis when I was growing up. Or the Soviets. Just sayin'.

And ... yet.

And yet, the other day, I walked into a neighborhood bar and grill in Fort Wayne, a place that is not exactly a hangout for ex-pats. It's a Midwestern working-class bar in a Midwestern working-class neighborhood -- a comfortable joint that's been around for 75 years, and where you can find the Cubs game on at both ends of the bar on most summer afternoons.

But not this afternoon.

This afternoon, at both ends of the bar, the World Cup was on. Russia vs. Egypt. Soccer, for God's sake.

Which suggests to me that for all OOAP's attempts to make us regard those who are different as some hazy threat to the American Way, we remain an extraordinarily cosmopolitan nation. And so despite the vein of anti-foreigner bigotry that has always run deep in America, and that demagogues have always tried to exploit, there is a chance we may yet survive the Ugly American  and his reign of error. We may yet remake America as a symbol of hope and decency, instead of the dirty word the Ugly American seems intent on making it.

Here's the thing, see, speaking of soccer: The U.S., Canada and Mexico just got selected to co-host the World Cup in 2026.

By that time, if we are still the republic we once were, the Ugly American will be out of office. And the World Cup will provide a golden opportunity to rebuild our traditional amity with our neighbors north and south, and to prove we are again worthy of the world's respect and trust.

It will be our chance again to be a welcoming, tolerant nation, instead of this cruel place of fear and loathing we have become. It will be our chance to tell the world that, yes, we lost our minds for awhile, but we're better now. The madness has passed.  Another demagogue, another soulless gangster adept at tapping into our darkest urges, may again emerge. But for now ...

For now, we are America again.

Welcome. And sorry about all that.