One can see the US’s current success at the 2014 World Cup, the fact that it’s now seriously counted as a participant in the world’s favorite sport, as actually a sign, an indication of its decline. The better the US becomes a football, the more it is a part of (rather than apart from) the international community proper, and this only serves to dim the glow of its exceptionalism…

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...