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Sports' struggle to return in the United States has punctured the myth of American exceptionalism

We are the reason we don’t have sports yet. We being we, the people.

Our faltering attempts to get back to playing sports are caused by the same forces that have kept us from dealing properly with this pandemic, a brew of hubris, impatience, partisanship and attendant misinformation that has given the lie to the fairy tale we tell ourselves of American exceptionalism.

In our conviction that we are a special nation, chosen above all others, a shining city upon a hill, a beacon of hope, under God, we have assumed that nature will favor us, cut us some slack.