Everything Is Going According to Plan

American soccer fans keep constant vigil, waiting for signs that their beloved USA is creeping toward the moment when it casts off history's shackles and becomes a Great Footballing Nation. Generally, this watchful stance is expressed in excitement over new club youth-development schemes, national team performances ("we beat Guatemala again!"; "we almost played well in a friendly against a European team!"; "we fucking own Mexico, dude"; "...almost certain to qualify for 2010..."; "...best team in the hemisphere!"; etc.), excitement over Yanqui players signing contracts with Belgian clubs, that sort of thing. The particularly masochistic monitor MLS attendance figures on a week-to-week basis. Those who prefer the long view bide their time, waiting for various immigrant groups to deliver their demographic payload—there are, one hears, many promising young Bosnian-Americans on the way up.

But let's look at it a different way. In the last eight years, we've had:

—A tainted presidential election;

—A head of state who rests his authority on a weird cult of personality;

—A concerted, and in no way covert, effort to establish a de facto one-party political system;

—A couple of horrendously expensive, mismanaged, inconclusive (on a good day) wars;

—A few natural disasters that left major cities in Third World shambles;

—A full-tilt, debt-driven meltdown of the financial system;

—And I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Lily-livered good-government types will look on this as a litany of woe. Soccer fans should rejoice. If this keeps up, we'll be the next Argentina in no time, churning under-fed creative midfielders out of our villas miserias by the score. As someone once said, poverty is good for nothing—except for football. And what else do you need? Health care?