The sun had barely risen over half of the United States on Sunday when a wave of schadenfreude swept the nation like an August heatwave.
On the other side of the world, the mighty US women’s soccer team had crashed out of the World Cup. For many Americans, this was sad news. But in a country still in the throes of the Great Polarization, many people who would call themselves patriotic delighted, with no apparent awareness of irony, in an American defeat.
