We here on this fair site have a deep deep hatred for the Patriots. Their “success” and the reaction of their fanbase to this success has fed the hate and kept it at a nice even temperature long enough to smoke all the cattle in Texas.
In a similar vein, the outspoken majority in the Commentist Party hates Donald Trump and thinks he is the worst thing to happen in the history of the world. This country is split in half with very little attempt to find common ground.
I’m here to tell you something that you won’t like: Trump and the Patriots are not evil incarnate.
Now, I know for some of you this will be like trying to explain to you that the color red is not the blue you think you see.
Trump and the Patriots are simply opportunists taking advantage of weakness in the opposition, weakness in rules/enforcement, and a general public starved for greatness where it hasn’t found any.
Is it any wonder the Pats are Trump’s favorite team?
If you think about it, this goes way back to how Robert Kraft got his wealth and his team. How exactly did he “earn” his wealth? He married into it and took his first company from his father-in-law. How did Trump get his money? He inherited it and has taken full advantage of bankruptcy laws and legal loopholes.
Sound similar?
When did the Patriots win their first Super Bowl/become relevant? Nearly five months after 9/11/2001. Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist and I’m not going to tell you that the league rigged the Super Bowl so the Pats would win.
Roger Goodell is not that smart.
What they did do, though, is cash in on that happenstance and that last second field goal that broke St. Louis Rams fans’ hearts (until Kroenke decided to REALLY mess with them). If you don’t think the league was ecstatic that those Patriots t-shirts didn’t have to go to Nicaragua, I don’t know what to tell you.
So, the league promoted the team and instructed its media minions (Hi Peter King!) to write up the fairy tale story. What was a super close Super Bowl win that could have gone either way became the “start of a dynasty”.
Donald Trump is a master of manipulating media. Even back in the 80s, he was able to get his face on TV and get his name/brand out to the public. He had no business being on late night talk shows like Late Night with David Letterman yet there he was:
He understood better than anyone that a public starved of something will flock to someone that will deliver it. He played up a New York tough guy persona of someone that has all the answers and will actually do something about those dirty whatevers and got ratings, exposure, and favorable reviews. Why do you think he still does the same schtick today? It works.
In his business dealings, he had many failures but he covered up his failures by exploiting loopholes in laws and successfully using bankruptcy laws. Some people would consider that cheating. Some people would also consider filming opponents cheating. Why did they do it? Because they could.
That speaks to a pragmatic world-view that both Trump and the Patriots organization hold that sees nothing wrong in taking every advantage even if it doesn’t seem “fair”. In their view, “fair” is for idiots. The NFL agrees.
Why do you think Roger Goodell destroyed the tapes after handing out a fine that, to a billionaire, amounted to a slap in the wrist? Do you honestly think he was going to kill his golden goose? The NFL wanted to ride that post-9/11 extreme nationalist hysteria as far as it could. Heck, it even started doing those troop “salutes”! And charging the US Government for them! Talk about opportunist…
Hillary Clinton was a weak opponent in the general election. The Republican party, in the primaries, put out a potpourri of Jets, Browns, Rams, and 49ers to challenge Trump and he wiped the floor with them. Or maybe I should call them Jets, Bills, and Dolphins.
Seriously, that division has sucked ass since 2001. From 2001 to 2017, the Patriots have won the division every year but twice. In 2002, the Jets somehow won the division and in 2008, the Dolphins somehow won the division despite the Pats having an 11-5 record. The Pats, incredibly, did not get a playoff berth that year, the first team in history to not make the playoffs with such a record.
If you have no or weak competition, how difficult is it to stay ahead? It doesn’t take greatness to succeed with that level of competition, it just requires that you not make the same mistakes your opponents make.
Hillary fucked up the election beyond belief. From the approach to Bernie Sanders, to the refusal to visit certain states, to playing what our own blaxabath called “prevent defense”, she made mistakes that Trump didn’t. Trump stuck to his base knowing that it would deliver him the White House. Yes, it’s frustrating when Trump keeps throwing five yard outs within two seconds, but it keeps the chains moving and the sacks at 0.
That’s what counts for winning in today’s NFL. And in politics. Don’t fuck up. Let your opponent fuck up and you’ll be fine. It reminds me of one of the great quotes from that great 90s movie Go:
You know what wakes me up in the middle of the night covered in a cold sweat? Knowing that you aren’t any worse than anyone else in your whole screwed up generation. In the old days, you know how you got to the top? Huh? By being better than the guy ahead of you. How do you people get to the top? By being so fucking incompetent, that the guy ahead of you can’t do his job, so he falls on his ass and congratulations, you are now on top. And now the top is down here, it used to be up here… and you don’t even know the fucking difference.
It’s not an exact parallel, but you get the gist. “Success” is now the lack of failure, not actual success.
Where do we go from here? Unfortunately, I think we’ve reached the point of no return. The NFL will never be the same and neither will politics in this country. When you worship false gods, this is what you get.
Alls I know is that there is a great game Down Under that doesn’t have these issues. You should check it out.
Got damn, Ivana Trump!
Pretty decent analogy.
Just like the Democrats are trying to out Republican the Republicans, the NFL is trying to out Patriots the Patriots, with equally awful results.
The reason the GOP wins anything these days is their willingness to do things that don’t occur to Democrats. The GOP has zero ideas except fuck the poor and enrich the already rich. These ideas are not popular, so they appeal to stupid people to vote against their own interests. Now I’m not saying all Evangelicals are stupid (ok I am), but it’s pretty easy to convince those people that up is down. Is there a God? Heck, I don’t know, and neither does anyone else, because there’s no proof. Zero. And yet some oily preacher can convince thousands of people that they need to believe, act, vote, and donate in specific ways so that a never-proven-to-exist entity will approve. So the GOP, seeing an opportunity, tells these people that…
1) Vietnam-dodging GW Bush is a patriotic sumbitch, while Medal of Honor winner John Kerry is a coward.
2) President Obama was not born here, is a Muslim, and hates America.
3) Donald Trump, whose entire life has been a long con, will Make America Great Again by…doing something amazing (and that he cares about you, the Average American despite a history of absolutely not caring about anyone except the lardass cunt in the mirror).
The GOP voter of today is an easily-led sucker; the same person who blindly accepts whatever Reverend Todd says will also blindly accept whatever bullshit Sean Hannity spews. Knowing this, the assholes who run the show will do whatever it takes to “win” because their base doesn’t care about anything accept said “winning.” When bloated asshole Scalia did the world a favor and died, President Obama nominated moderate, respected Merrick Garland to fill the seat. Chinless turtle Mitch McConnell said fuck it, we’re not gonna have a hearing to confirm this guy. What did Democrats do? Cluck their tongues and…nothing else. As soon as Trump was inaugurated, scabby vagina Neil Gorsuch gets confirmed because McConnell eliminated the need to have any Democrats on board. See, today’s GOP doesn’t care about appearances or norms, they only care about “winning” and maintaining power. Their ideas suck, so they have to cheat. But as Balls pointed out, it’s not really cheating, it’s just doing stuff no one ever really considered doing before.
Anyway, the point is, Tom Brady’s a dickless goat-blower.
I’m still surprised they let you live among them…
Orange County is only about 55% Republican now, thanks to them dying off and being replaced by people from other countries. Also, they can’t make me move because I’m too heavy.
So do the Democrats, except the Democrats want more tokens works as goons for the rich.
Democrats’ arrogance and complete disregard of what their fan base wants is why they’ll keep losing. Like I said, trying to out Republican the Republicans isn’t working.
I don’t think Trump is the worst thing in the world. He’s a feature or emblem of all of the worst things in the world, but even the worst thing he can and will do (stack the federal judiciary) isn’t the end of the world. The judiciary is already heavily conservative. So, “meh.” I really don’t like him because he’s exposed how fucking awful and stupid most people are in how they react to him – both positively and negatively. On the bright side, we needed everyone to fully show off their asses to the world. It’s easier to know who the enemy is when they’re not hiding behind civility and norms and phony smiles and indifference.
But I do want Tom Brady to fucking die. I don’t even have a good reason except that his face makes me instinctually angry and I want to see it caved in.
Whenever my ladyfriend is disappointed in someone, I always tell her that it’s actually a good thing because now you know what that person is really like. Knowing who the enemies are is half the battle.
I’m not going to waste the energy; the “logic” here is as flawed as the NFL definition of a catch.
Flawed logic? If you disagree, that’s fine, we can agree to disagree, but don’t criticize my logic.
There is no logic involved here.
The only logic is in them tittays.
OK,…. two good points.
I LIKE THE PART ABOUT TITS
Related?
http://www.businessinsider.com/clay-travis-espn-cnn-brooke-baldwin-video-2017-9
That’s awesome. I’m glad he’s owning it.
OK, good point.
Doubtful. Trump stuck to his base knowing that it would deliver him great ratings on the new network he wanted to create after the election. What he had no idea of, was that HRC’s campaign was so badly run that he would end up winning. He didn’t execute a brilliant game plan so much as watched the other team throw a backwards pass into the endzone & drop it, and then jump on it for the win.
But I do agree with most of what you wrote here.
He didn’t execute a brilliant game plan so much as watched the other team throw a backwards pass into the endzone & drop it, and then jump on it for the win.
That’s pretty much my whole point.
http://time.com/4937675/how-to-fix-american-stupidity/
Kill all the white people. #whitegenocide
How about just the stupid ones…. that’ll leave about 10%.
Not Even One Drop
Let’s not discount America’s role in ensuring that Hillary Clinton lost. They’re the ones who spent hours upon hours sharing memes on facebook and twitter, and they’re the ones who ultimately pulled the levers on the voting machines to ensure that Trump ended up in the White House. And by “America” of course I mean “Russia”.
That’s true, but HRC never really promoted a message or a solid agenda. She wanted to be president, just because. And that wasn’t enough for a lot of people who were reacting positively to the anti-establishment campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Trump. Americans tend to be a pretty uninformed bunch. They react to spiffy slogans rather than compiled data, so you’re going to have to get those people a message that they can ingest in quick soundbites.
I’m not saying that’s right, it just is what it is.
She had a perfectly cromulent message, and her agenda was detailed and readily available on her website. But the news media loves a train wreck, so all the oxygen in the room was sucked up by the Cheeto-encrusted assclown.
Bullshit. “Love Trumps Hate.*” That was pure crap. And don’t ask people to get off their fucking asses and be bothered to access her website to find out that, yes, her ideas and agendas will benefit them and their families because that ain’t gonna happen. We’re one step away from living in Idiocracy. Get the masses on board with a simple message, then educate their children and in a generation we’ll maybe…maybe…have a more informed electorate capable of making decisions that don’t shoot them in their metaphorical foot.
*I think she had other slogans. Fuck if I can remember them. But MAGA stuck, because it’s simple and fits on a damned hat.
/fart noise
Anyone who plays the prevent d deserves to be thrown in jail.
LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP!
“Locker up.”
– Shonn Greene’s equivalent of a “power up”