There was an unintentionally hilarious story over at SB Nation—a sports blog network founded by Markos Moulitsas, of Daily Kos fame—the other day about New England Patriots fans who are Super Duper Sad You Guys regarding the fact that Tom Brady and Bill Belichick don't, like, hate Donald Trump.
Seriously. That was the whole story.
Here's a taste of it:
That righteous indignation only fueled the Pats-fans-against-the-world mentality that began to take shape after Spygate in 2007, when the NFL disciplined the team for videotaping the Jets' defensive coaches. Since then, it’s seemed like everyone outside of the L.L. Bean Boot-heavy (a company currently struggling with a Trump problem of its own) states thinks the Pats are cheaters. No one likes cheaters who win all the time. ...
I remember the shock that went around the internet when the hat pictures surfaced. Trump was largely still a joke then, so some thought that maybe Brady was just messing with the media. Others hoped someone had given the hat to him ironically and he hadn’t gotten rid of it yet.
That thinking turned out to be wishful: Brady went on to say it’d be "great" if his "friend" Trump won the election, and then later walked those comments back. Trump told The New York Times shortly thereafter: "Tom Brady is a great friend of mine. He's a winner and he likes winners."
So, just to be clear: The Patriots cheating their asses off didn't matter to these football "fans" but, ZOMG, TRUMP! Oh the tears, they aren't done flowing yet:
In the past, if a team’s politics didn’t align with those of its fan base, most fans could live with it. But the game got way uglier, and many people seem to be struggling: Fans flocked to Brady’s Facebook page the day Trump read the letter in New Hampshire to leave comments about how disappointed they were. Countless New England loyalists I’ve talked to over the past two months have told me that their idols are wobbling on their pedestals.
For some, they’ve shattered.
Emphasis mine, because that's pathetic. If you stop cheering for a team or feel personally betrayed by them because they voted for someone other than your preferred political candidate, you're pathetic.
"Yeah, I just will not watch," she said. "I really enjoy watching the game with my family. I like what it means for my family to sit down and talk and laugh and watch and snack and now ... I just, it’s just ruined for me. It’s not the worst thing about this, of course — this whole thing stems from my tremendous disappointment over this election and country. But it will forever color my opinion of the team. I will not watch, I will not buy any more jerseys. I’m done."
Wow, she sure sounds like a real fun person to be around at a party.
Pease isn’t alone — at least six other people told me they can’t bear to watch Pats games anymore, either.
It’s hard to have a conversation about the Patriots without talking about Trump anymore.
It actually isn't, at all, unless you're the sort of pathetic loser whose identity is wrapped up entirely in politics—the sort of jabbering fool who thinks that it's worth a multi-thousand word feature to highlight how awful it is that your heroes dare to have an opinion contrary to your own. This is Chris-Christie-Begging-Bruce-Springsteen-For-Love Pathetic. It's sad, and yet, at the same time, strangely, profoundly hilarious.
The worst thing about sports writers—the absolutely most annoying thing—is that they all tend to recognize that what they've spent their life covering is more or less entirely trivial. So they try to make it more "relevant" and "meaningful" by injecting politics into their work, into their writing, into their livelihood. Which is how you wind up with headlines and stories like this one:
Obviously, in a sane world, this is the only thing he should want to talk about. It is the definition of "dog bites man." In an insane, monstrously stupid world, however, sports writers have to spend the week trying to figure out ways to tie the Super Bowl to the drama in the White House. Here's what Brady had to say when asked about Trump:
"I’m not talking politics at all because I just want to focus on the positive aspects of this game and my teammates and the reasons why we’re here," Brady said. "It’s taken a lot of hard work to get to this point and I just want to focus on the positive nature of two great teams competing at the highest level."
And you know what? That's all he has to say. Tom Brady isn't here to make you feel better about the state of the nation. He's not here to explain why he supports the politicians he supports. He's a grown man paid to throw a fucking football to other grown men who have their own opinions about the state of the world, none of which matter, none of which make any difference to the product on the field.
Me? I'm going to cheer for the Patriots and eat a Taylor Gourmet sub and maybe listen to a Taylor Swift song during the Super Bowl—despite the fact that I think Trump is a dope, despite the fact I didn't vote for him, despite the fact that I think some of his policies are bad. Because nothing he does changes the fact that excellence on the field is worth enjoying. Nothing he does changes the tastiness of a delicious hoagie. Nothing he does makes a catchy song any less toe-tapping.