Best World Cup highlights haven’t come on the field, but from Buc-ee’s, Costco, and Chick-Fil-A

Ever since the tournament began in cities across America last month, the internet has been abuzz with social media videos of visiting soccer fans falling in love with our food, culture, and people, and the little everyday things we take for granted, like ice machines and air conditioning. They’re blown away by the free drink refills, the retail superstores, and most of all, ranch dressing! They can’t believe how friendly and welcoming Americans are. Many who flew home after their games are already posting their plans to come back again soon.

These videos make for a nice present to America as she celebrates her 250th birthday. But the most interesting thing about them is not that the world’s soccer fans loved America. It’s that they didn’t expect to. They all seemed surprised by the happy, good-natured country they found themselves loving.

It raises the question: What did they expect?

After all, America is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Millions of foreigners visit every year. Millions, maybe billions, more would love to move here. (Dystopias don’t have border crises, after all.) So why did World Cup fans coming here expect to find a nasty, dangerous nation full of angry people?

We know why. It’s the media.

Many of the liberal elites who run America’s mainstream newsrooms and entertainment industry hate this country. They deliberately and falsely portray America as violent, hateful, racist, and falling apart. They mock Americans’ faith, our history, our traditions, and our values. They routinely glamorize anti-American leftists and slander patriotic conservatives, from President Donald Trump to everyday Americans trying to raise their families in the country they love.

It’s tempting to say that America is just another story that incompetent journalists and Hollywood producers get wrong. But it’s not an accident. Progressives actively promote anti-Americanism because they know the more people dislike our country, the more liberal they tend to become. If Americans are taught that the United States is fundamentally unjust, they’re more likely to want government to remake it. And their strategy is working. A recent poll found that only 27% of Democrats are extremely or very proud to be American, compared to 93% for Republicans. Maybe it’s not surprising that another poll found that two-thirds of Democrats approve of socialism.

Every movie, news report, and TV episode about how rotten Americans are is a subtle campaign ad for the Left. They want us angry, pessimistic, and at each other’s throats. They know the only way they can accumulate the power they want is to divide us, from each other and from our heritage.

Most Americans see through this biased narrative. We live here. We love our neighbors regardless of their politics. We know our communities. We know what life is actually like here. People around the world don’t. They have no reason not to believe the lies the liberal media feeds them through their screens. Until now.

World Cup fans’ pro-America videos should remind us of two things.

First, how good our country really is. Contrary to the media narrative, America, for all her faults, is the freest, fairest, most generous country on earth. And second: If we want people to know the truth about America, we can’t rely on the media to report it. We have to share our story ourselves, beginning with our own children.

Unfortunately, today American kids hear the same anti-American propaganda that misled so many World Cup visitors. The 1619 Project, critical race theory, and intersectional studies that took over our schools in the last decade are all designed to chip away at children’s natural patriotism.

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To fight back against the false narrative, we have to tell the true stories about the men and women who built our country. That’s what the organization I lead, the American Cornerstone Institute, launched the “Little Patriots” program to do. Little Patriots teaches kids the stories of America through classroom materials, teacher training, and Star-Spangled Adventures, an animated video series. It covers everything from Plymouth Rock to the Emancipation Proclamation, from Christopher Columbus and the Founding to Amelia Earhart and Jackie Robinson. To celebrate America’s milestone this summer, we released the new feature-length “Star-Spangled Adventures: The Movie!” It’s available to stream online for free.

This summer, millions of foreigners fell in love with the real America that they had never been told about. We need to make sure young Americans grow up knowing America’s true story from the start. All we have to do is tell it.