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Trump’s Bigotry Is Fuel for Megan Rapinoe’s Success
As a former NFL player, I know athlete activism is always going to draw the ire of people in positions of power
Megan Rapinoe isn’t done talking about equal pay.
Following her team’s World Cup victory, the dynamic midfielder and co-captain of the U.S. women’s soccer team has been making the public rounds over the past few weeks. There was the victory parade in New York, appearances on late-night talk shows, and news just this week of a major book deal with Penguin Press.
Rapinoe has been on fire — and she’s been using her elevated platform to talk about the issues she holds dearest.
In March, Rapinoe was one of the 28 women to file a gender discrimination suit against the United States Soccer Federation in pursuit of pay equal to their male counterparts. She also refused to participate in the national anthem throughout the World Cup as an act of solidarity with those who’ve experienced racial profiling and police brutality. She also recently became the first openly gay athlete to pose for Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue.
Oh, and she has insisted for months now that she wouldn’t visit the White House if her team won the World Cup — which they did — prompting predictable outrage from Donald Trump. (No word yet on whether her teammates will attend or if the White House will extend an invitation in the first place.)
Rapinoe is an outspoken and remarkable woman. Little surprise, then, that the president hates her — Trump has always been someone who despises those who stand for inclusion and equality.
Consider that just days after Rapinoe told a cheerful crowd in Manhattan to “love more [and] hate less,” Trump held a rally of his own in North Carolina where he gleefully allowed the crowd to chant “send her back,” speaking about Rep. Ilhan Omar. Or that, back in 2016, when Rapinoe wrote an essay explaining her decision to kneel in solidarity during the national anthem (though during the World Cup she opted to stand with her hands at her sides), Trump was telling Colin Kaepernick to “find a country that works better for him.”
