It’s important to pause and contrast these two events: Trump’s efforts to rebrand the Fourth of July and the women earning a place in the World Cup finals. Trump’s blood-and-soil spectacle on the Mall is the culmination of an era in which the right has successfully hijacked patriotism for electoral gain, branding liberals and urbanites as inimical to real America. This U.S. team represents the charismatic refutation of that ugly variant of nationalism.

One of the reasons I’ve become so enamored with this team is because it has permitted me to feel an explosion of joy about the country, a sentiment that has felt especially alien these past few years. Earlier in the tournament, I went with my wife and two daughters to watch the team play in France. Before a game in Paris, we walked to the stadium in our jerseys, singing about our country, aware that denizens of the city might sneer at this display of unabashed Americanism. But at a moment when there are very good reasons to feel national shame, I felt the opposite, wearing that shirt…

That’s because this team is a reminder of the best of the American ethos—the promise of ever-expanding equality, the spirit of reform that yielded Title IX and laid the basis for American female soccer supremacy, the carnival of individuality that is the team’s roster. At a time of despair, the players represent a form of not-so-utopian hope: how a community of different backgrounds and sexual orientations relates to one another with familiar affection. A lesbian activist who protests police brutality has become a national hero. Draped in the stars and stripes, this team demonstrates how civic patriotism has an equal claim to representing the country.