The worlds of politics, sports, celebrity, activism, Trump Derangement Syndrome and the ever-hungry news media collided this week. According to Washington Times, fans of U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe, who constantly refuses to salute the flag or sing the national anthem, want her to run for president, and some of the mainstream media sites agree.

“Megan Rapinoe is filling the leadership void,” declared MSNBC.

Earlier this week, anthem-protesting U.S. Women’s Soccer star Megan Rapinoe told MSNBC that her girlfriend, WNBA star Sue Bird, told her that she might be asked to run for president of the United States soon.

Rapinoe’s remark came after MSNBC host Rachel Maddow predictably gushed over the athlete for her political activism. “I feel like you have become more and more comfortable and more and more articulate in terms of using the platform that you’ve got to say what you think ought to be happening in the world,” according to News Busters.

The Daily Wire reported that later Rapinoe seemed “more calm, more capable, more eloquent than ever, and it seems like that gets better over time. And so that makes me want you to do this forever….you’re really good at talking when you need to talk and saying things that need to be said.”

Ms. Rapinoe, who fashions herself a “walking protest,” previously said in an interview that she would be protesting the national anthem as an “F you” to President Donald Trump and scoffed at a potential invite to the White House, telling a reporter that there is no “f***ing way” she’d be going.

“Public Policy Polling literally did a poll today. Which was you versus Trump in a presidential contest and you beat him by a point,” Maddow told the athlete, joking that she doesn’t think Rapinoe is “going to announce” a presidential run.

Rapinoe said she’s not going to run for the Oval Office and added, “My girlfriend actually just said, she’s like, you need to be careful. They’re gonna ask you to run for president. You need to slow your roll.”

“I’m not asking you to run, just suggesting that others are polling on it,” Maddow responded, giving off a laugh.

Rapinoe did tell Maddow, however, that she’s “ready” for the “next thing,” in terms of her activism.

“I’m excited to kind of dig in and see really where I can take this,” she said. “I think that I’ve been kind of wanting that for a number of years and how do we – how do we bring it out of just sports and out of soccer and out of the things that we’ve been doing and that I’ve been doing into something way bigger?…I kind of want to stop just talking about things and, like, how do we put things in action? How do we help? What do we do? What’s the best way to get people mobilized, whether that’s in voting or just getting people more educated and more plugged in to what’s happening, you know, in our politics and in our lives? And I think I’m ready for that, like, next thing. I want to be more impactful.”

“I think the country is ready for you,” Maddow praised.

The poll of 604 voters was conducted within 48 hours of the U.S. victory in the Women’s World Cup soccer tournament, this courtesy of Public Policy Polling — PPP — which often gets billed in the press as a left-leaning pollster.

“By popular demand, PPP tested how a Megan Rapinoe v. Donald Trump 2020 match up would shake out, and we found that Rapinoe gets 42% to 41% for Trump,” the organization said.

And the deep numbers: 75% of Republicans back President Trump, 16% favor Ms. Rapinoe and 8% are undecided. Among independents, 40% back the president, 39% the soccer star and 21% are undecided. And among the Democrats: 12% are in Mr. Trump’s corner, 65% in Ms. Rapinoe’s and 22% are undecided.

The results leave people to question the validity of the poll which seems to have no way of actually telling if someone is truly part of the political party in which they are claiming. The 16% of Republicans who chose Rapinoe could very well be liberals in disguise. And likewise the 12% of Democrats for Trump could be conservative.

If you remove those two factors the poll appears to shift in Trumps favor.