Here We Go Again

Not here we go again the Patriots are back in the Super Bowl (though that, too). But here we go again turning the Super Bowl into political theater. It begins, as always, with The Nation’s Dave Zirin, who never saw a holding call he couldn’t turn into a jeremiad against social injustice. In a recent tweet he quickly lamented the upcoming Super Bowl this way: I understand how politics has permeated our existence like contaminates in the Flint, Michigan, water supply, but Jesus! Can’t we give the game a fighting chance to take a competitive, entertaining breath before smothering it in its crib with the plastic dry cleaning bag of our suffocating partisanship?

I think I can answer that--no we can’t. We’re just a tweet away from this Super Bowl becoming yet another proxy fight in the Resistance v. Trump War, with the Patriots standing in for Trump. Patriots’ owner Bob Kraft set his team up for being cast as the Trump stand-in by his giddy, mindless embrace of Trump’s candidacy and presidency. As a Patriot fan of long standing and a Trump hater in good standing, I’ve been pretty zealous in going after Kraft for his utter witlessness in this regard here, here and here. He dumbly burdened his team and his fanbase through his fanboy infatuation with an authoritarian mental case.  As Trump’s unfitness has become increasingly apparent to even his most dewy-eyed groupies, however, Kraft has acted to create some distance from the great Oval Office Underachiever and his own famously over-achieving football team. Just on the surface--without knowing what has gone on in the allegedly frequent calls between Kraft and Trump--we know the following:Kraft publicly stood by players during the height of the right to kneel protestsTom Brady called Trump “divisive”Brady’s wife has been an outspoken advocate for immigrantsWith Kraft’s blessing, Brady and a dozen of his teammates skipped the team visit to The White House after its shocking Super Bowl win over AtlantaTeam Captain Devin McCourty produced a powerful video on what a patriot really means with emphasis on the First AmendmentKraft lent the team plane to the Parkland students to fly to DC for their anti-NRA rallyClearly Kraft has grown uncomfortable with his Do Your Job football team playing the villain in trial-by-combat, like Game of Thrones' psychopathic King Joffrey’s murderous knight, The Mountain. Now if only the media--especially its more left leaning elements (looking at you, Chris Hayes)--would take Charles Pierce’s advice (above) from a tweet he sent before the Patriots-Falcons Super Bowl and just stop it! Let me count the reasons why:First, when you frame the game as Resistance v. Trump, you set yourself up to repeat the enormous pain and suffering of election night 2016 if the Patriots come back from, say, a 28-3 deficit.Second, with the Patriots always having at least an even chance of winning, you give Trump an even chance for claiming a faux win for himself. It really is like a Game of Thrones trial-by-combat…a true warrior faces great harm in the actual arena while some fat-ass sponsor stands safely on the sidelines waiting to do a touchdown dance.  Third, it’s goddamn football game...with over a hundred players and millions of fans on both sides from vastly different political, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. Good God, Dave Zirin and Charles Pierce are comrades in arms on most every social issue, but Zirin is on the record as a Patriots hater (“odious” he calls them) while Pierce is a loyal hometown rooter and Tom Brady biographer. How stupid is it to lump everyone that has anything to do with one team as a Trump supporter?Yes, I want to be free of the stigma of rooting for a team that’s so closely associated with Trump. Like most Pats fans I’ve lived with the stigma of Spygate for more than a decade now. But this is different. This is about depriving Trump of what he craves most…cheap and easy wins. Allowing Trump to freely bask in the glory of the Patriots is like allowing Hitler to bask in the glory of Mozart. Oh? Did I just break Godwin's Law? Fine me a first round draft choice.