“I’m not going to the fucking White House.” Have more beautiful words ever been spoken by a world champion before? Megan Rapinoe of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team said those words before her team won the World Cup. And now that they’ve won, she’s not backing down.
“I stand by the comments that I made about not wanting to go to the White House with the exception of the expletive,” Rapinoe said at a press conference. “My mom will be really upset about that.”
Regardless, I am sure her mom is really fucking proud of her.
Rapinoe continued, “I would encourage my teammates to think hard about lending that platform or having that co-opted by an administration that doesn’t feel the same way, that doesn’t fight for the same things that we fight for.”
In other words, everything Trump touches turns to white supremacist mediocrity topped with a handful or two of misogyny. But the only reason Rapinoe and Team USA, after working so hard to show the world that they are an awesome positive force to be reckoned with, wouldn’t want to be associated in any way with this odious man is because Rapinoe hates the U.S., obviously.
Did you know that she had the audacity to kneel during the National Anthem in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick in order to protest the brutality against and oppression of Black people in the U.S.? And now that the league won’t let her kneel she refuses to sing the National Anthem! “What an un-American thing to do,” cry people who have never represented America in the Olympics, or won a world championship for this country or done anything else for this country.
One of those people is named Donald Trump. He took to Twitter to vent about Rapinoe.
“Megan should never disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag, especially since so much has been done for her & the team,” Trump ranted. “Be proud of the Flag that you wear.”
“Be proud of the Flag,” writes the man who faked having bone spurs to get out of serving in the military.
Of course, Rapinoe is proud of the U.S. but she’s not proud of Trump.
“@mPinoe just stated that she is ‘not going to the F…ing White House if we win.’ Other than the NBA,” Trump wrote, “leagues and teams love coming to the White House.”
By “other than the NBA,” I’m assuming he’s talking about how the Golden State Warriors went to visit President Obama, not Trump, after their 2018 championship win.
Trump’s Twitter ramblings included a complaint that the NBA no longer uses the term “owners” and then asks that someone (not sure who) “please explain that I just got Criminal Justice Reform passed, Black unemployment is at the lowest level in our Country’s history, and the poverty index is also best number EVER.” Apparently, he thinks that the reason that people think he’s racist and/or people are protesting against racism is because they don’t understand how Trump is basically a white one-man NAACP.
In other words, Trump is saying, “Hey Black people, you have nothing to complain about. You should be thanking me.”
But Black people and anyone who cares about Black people (or anyone who doesn’t identify as white) have nothing to thank him for unless it’s a sarcastic “Thanks for bringing concentration camps and crowds of Nazis with torches back.”
Trump wrote that he was “inviting the TEAM, win or lose.”
And as you know, they won. In response, Trump Tweeted, “Congratulations to the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team on winning the World Cup! Great and exciting play. America is proud of you all!”
Mm-hmm.
It’s not an honor to meet the president if the president is not an honorable person. It would actually be a punishment to force this team of amazing women to be in the same room with a man who has been accused of sexual assault and rape by so many women that they could make up their own soccer team.
Sue Bird, a WNBA player on the Seattle Storm and Rapinoe’s girlfriend, wrote an amazing piece for The Players’ Tribune titled “So the President F—ing Hates My Girlfriend” in which she describes what it is like “to have the literal President of the literal United States (of literal America) go Full Adolescent Boy on your girlfriend.”
But Bird maintains perspective: “It’s also really important not to forget what this is actually, first and foremost, about, you know? It’s about a world-class athlete, operating at the absolute peak of her powers, on the absolute biggest stage there is. It’s about an athlete…killing it.”
Trump, alas, is also at the peak of his powers, and he is definitely using them for evil. He must be defeated. I think the Democratic field is pretty crowded, but I could get behind a Rapinoe-Bird ticket. Then again, they are kicking a– right where they are.
D’Anne Witkowski is a poet, writer and comedian living in Michigan with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBT politics for over a decade. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.