The Patriot Post® · Unity at the Super Bowl? Please

The Kansas City Chiefs, this author’s lifelong favorite team, defeated Joe Biden’s Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII last night. Red state beat blue state. The halftime show was either terrible or excellent. Commercials were either funny or duds. The national anthem was moving and the “black national anthem” was unnecessary and divisive. And how about that holding call against the Eagles that gave the Chiefs a first down and essentially the game with 1:54 left?

We’re just getting started, but as you can see, division and controversy were thematic in the game. That’s not all bad, even if some of it was unnecessarily political.

Part of the greatness of America is evidenced in the fact that we can (for the most part) root for sports teams civilly. How many millions of us are joyfully recounting the game and the commercials around those proverbial office water coolers today?

We also do sports (for the most part) without violence. Philadelphia fans, however, do seem to be a frequent exception — fans were flipping cars before the game even started. Philly police in riot gear successfully dispersed angry and profane fans after the game. Donald Trump Jr., ever the master of acerbic wit, called them “the antifa of sports fans.”

Speaking of Trumps, the elder Donald jeered Rihanna’s performance, calling it “without question, the single worst Halftime Show in Super Bowl history.” He made fun of her “stylist,” and, to be sure, more than one of your humble Patriot Post editors thought that, in her promos, she looked like a refugee from a Dr. Seuss book. None of us watched the halftime show, so we’ll leave comment to others. As for Trump, we suspect his critique had less to do with the show than with Rihanna spray-painting a car in 2020 with “F**k Trump” and her 2018 lawsuit to stop him from using her music at his rallies.

The Associated Press, on the other hand, gave a ridiculously gushing review of Rihanna’s performance.

Then there was Jill Biden, sporting a custom “Biden” Eagles jersey with the number 46 to celebrate her husband, who dodged an interview during the game, likely to avoid embarrassment.

Chris Stapleton’s rendition of the national anthem brought tears to the eyes of many, including Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. Stapleton was no Whitney Houston, but he did the anthem proud.

There was also “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” labeled the black national anthem as far back as 1917 by the NAACP. Sheryl Lee Ralph performed the song during pre-game festivities, a new tradition begun in 2021. That “separate but equal” tradition, of course, hearkens back to the NFL controversy over the disgraceful display of so many players kneeling for the national anthem in protest of our supposedly systemically racist country. By the way, the AP notes that Rihanna “previously declined to perform in the 2019 halftime show out of solidarity with quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s protest of racial inequality.”

That bit about racial inequality brings us to the continued nonsensical protests against the Chiefs for having the gall to feature a Native American mascot. The name of the team and its stadium (Arrowhead), as well as the logo and the fan-driven “tomahawk chop,” are all the subjects of ire for activists who claim those things are “hurting” Native Americans. Other than maybe veganism and changing our clocks twice a year, it’s hard to think of anything dumber than the idea that naming a team the Chiefs (or Indians, Braves, or Redskins) somehow disparages Native Americans.

Yet there they are, demanding that the NFL kick out the Native Americans to make guilty white people stop whining so much.

The clowns at The New York Times tried really hard to avoid even using the word “Chiefs.”

On a final note about that holding penalty, Philly fans may be irate (again, still), but Eagles cornerback James Bradberry confessed that he earned that yellow flag: “I pulled on his jersey. They called it. I was hoping they would let it ride.”

Now can’t we all just get along?

No, we can’t. Disagreeing is as American as those 1.45 billion chicken wings we all ate last night.

(Updated)