How the U.S. women's soccer team renewed our patriotism

"We are a disagreeing people," says Greg Cote in the Miami Herald. Our national discourse "has become hectoring, uncivil, the debate amplified into shouting, fists pounded on tables." But America's women's national soccer team, with its dramatic and inspiring World Cup wins, has temporarily suspended the snarling. "All of what can divide us — politics, race, religion, region, money, gender — dissipates for a little bit as we come together to rally behind this most American of all teams." Win or lose in the finals against Japan on Sunday, our women have already achieved a seemingly "impossible goal." Here, an excerpt:

We watch on TV and hear Republicans and Democrats accuse each other of loving the country less.... Economic struggles divide us by class. Racial equality is not finished. We can’t even seem to agree on what "marriage" means, or who can partake of it. ...

This American World Cup run is where Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck can agree that President Obama was exactly right to cheer Abby Wambach’s miracle-header against Brazil. This is where people who are religiously anti-abortion and just as passionately pro-choice — people who might never broker common ground on that — can be in the same room Sunday in front of a TV, each group cheering as loudly as the other.

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Read the entire article in the Miami Herald.