Loyalists of President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement seem eager to follow Trump wherever he goes, even if it means wading into a fight that will “dramatically backfire” on them, according to one analyst.
Over the weekend, Trump reportedly called FIFA president Gianni Infantino and personally asked him to review the red card and accompanying suspension of Team USA star Folarin Balogun. Balogun was given a red card during the U.S.’s match against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Round of 32 and was initially supposed to miss the team’s Round of 16 match against Belgium. However, FIFA reversed the suspension and allowed Balogun to play, which drew swift condemnation from soccer fans across the globe.
The U.S. lost to Belgium 4-1 on Monday.
Will Sommer, a reporter at The Bulwark, wrote in a new article on Tuesday that the episode was also yet another reminder of how far the MAGA faithful are willing to go to support Trump, even when he makes them look silly for doing so.
“The episode was yet another reminder of how eagerly the MAGA and MAGA-adjacent internet will adopt any cause Trump champions—regardless of how haphazardly he does it. And how those causes often dramatically backfire on them,” Sommer wrote.
Several MAGA faithful cheered Trump as he intervened in Balogun’s suspension, Sommer noted. He found their support for the move ironic, considering Trump’s attempt to get rid of birthright citizenship protections for certain people in the U.S., and the fact that Balogun himself is a birthright citizen born to Yoruba Nigerian parents.
Sommer also noted that MAGA’s love affair with soccer seemed to be a “short-lived fling” after the U.S. lost to Belgium.
“Perhaps this was all inevitable,” Sommer wrote. “Conservatives have long looked at soccer as a European sport. And they’ve long looked at Europe as an effeminate continent not on the same plane as brute America. But I can’t help but think some of this was just deeply personal. Having embraced Trumpian bullying of FIFA, they were suddenly attached to the success of the U.S. squad. And that squad’s success had, in turn, become an emblem for Trump’s ability to shape world competition in America’s favor.”
“When Belgium’s striker Romelu Lukaku scored the fourth and final goal in extra time and celebrated it with a ‘f— you’ to the crowd and a mocking Trump dance, it had to have stung on a deeper level than just patriotic pride,” he added.
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