Every four years, the same cultural class that lectures you about politics at rock concerts wrings its hands over why America can't win the World Cup — and every four years, they miss the point on purpose.

The U.S. men's soccer team crashed out in the round of 16 for the third straight time, and the usual suspects are treating it like a national crisis. But this isn't a story about American failure. It's a story about American choice — and the elite's refusal to respect it.

The Detroit Free Press laid out the plain truth this week: our best young athletes are "shooting hoops and juking linebackers, not working on their Elastico footwork." They're dreaming of a Lakers jersey or a Cowboys helmet, not a Paris St. Germain kit. We don't have a Mbappe, a Messi, a Ronaldo, or a Haaland because the American kids who might have become them are playing sports we actually invented and dominate.

And as the Free Press noted, there is nothing wrong with this. We produce some of the greatest athletes on earth. They just funnel elsewhere.

So why the perpetual hand-wringing? Because the same people who want America to conform to global norms on everything else can't stand that we built our own sporting culture. Football, basketball, baseball — sports we created, sports we rule. Soccer is the world's game, and the globalist set can't forgive us for preferring our own.

The pressure to care about soccer mirrors every other cultural imposition: you must use the right pronouns, you must care about the right foreign conflicts, and you must pretend that a sport where the MLS draws fewer viewers than bowling deserves your passion. It's cultural colonization, full stop.

Which brings us to Mick Jagger. The Rolling Stones frontman told The New York Times podcast this week that fans come to concerts to escape, not to be lectured. "You don't want to lecture them," Jagger said. His job is to give people two hours where they can "forget all their problems and the problems of the world."

Bruce Springsteen apparently disagrees — he's spent his latest tour calling Trump's administration "reckless" and "treasonous" and releasing a song about "King Trump" and "federal thugs." Trump fired back, calling Springsteen a "dried up prune" on Truth Social.

Two different approaches from two aging rock stars. Jagger respects his audience enough to give them what they came for. Springsteen treats ticket-buyers as a captive audience for his political fixations. One understands that entertainment is an escape; the other thinks you showed up to be educated.

Same energy as the soccer hand-wringers. They don't want Americans to enjoy what we enjoy. They want us to adopt what the rest of the world enjoys — and to feel ashamed until we do.

We won't lose our seat at the United Nations because we can't advance past the round of 16. And if Kylian Mbappe is so impressive, as the Free Press suggested, ask him to throw a football through a tire from 30 yards.

The next World Cup will bring the same ritual: disappointment, then lectures about how we need to invest more, care more, be more like everyone else. You can skip the sermon. America built its own games, its own culture, its own dreams. The rest of the world can keep its soccer. We'll keep our freedom.