The New England Patriots are headed to Super Bowl LI but according to SBNation.com, they face one major problem with their fans– Donald Trump.
The website owned by Vox Media, claims in a recent headline, ‘The Patriots Have a Trump Problem’.
“For over a decade now, people outside of New England have reviled the Patriots for turning winning into a science and, many believe, cheating to do so. Pats fans doubled-down in response, and a fierce loyalty took root in Massachusetts that, through the sagas of Spygate and Deflategate, seemed unshakable,” the SBNation article published Jan. 13th says.
“But recently, that blind faith has faced its greatest test in the form of the team’s connection to Republican President-elect Donald Trump.”
“The trouble began when Patriots reporters spotted Brady with a Make America Great Again hat in his locker in Foxboro in the fall of 2015 (feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?), soon after Trump announced his candidacy and called Mexicans rapists in the same speech. Over the past year and a half, the team’s ties to Trump have only grown stronger.”
The article claims that the Super Bowl-bound team is losing fans in liberal Massachusetts, because of Trump connections.
“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,” according to the article.
The article lists some of the teams connections to President Donald Trump.
“The night before the election, Trump said that Brady and Belichick supported him, and read out loud a letter that Belichick wrote him — in which Belichick commended the candidate for doing doing a “tremendous” job — at a rally in New Hampshire. When asked about the letter, Belichick said that it was not politically motivated. On Nov. 16, a few days after the election, Kraft was seen entering Trump Tower in Manhattan.”
“No matter how anyone feels about the team or the president-elect, the two have become as woven into each other’s histories as Trump’s hair is to his head. The difference is that while the rest of the country doesn’t really have a stake in this connection, Patriots fans in liberal Massachusetts who find Trump abhorrent have to grapple with the emotional implications. Patriotism in the age of Trump, it turns out, is a tricky thing to navigate.”
For the complete SBNation article click here.