Rooting for the Enemy: A Parallel Between Sports and Election Day 2020

I’m a big fan of American football, and in particular, the New York Giants. But if you ask me, the NFL has done just about everything they possibly can to lose my viewership over the last few years. I’ll spare you my hot takes on the reasons why, but you can make your own assumptions, and what I want to address is bigger than that.

Despite the politicization of the sport in many ways, I still love watching the games, and I still love my team. I also love to hate certain teams too (looking at you, Eagles fans). The rivalry between New York and Philadelphia runs deep, as games between the two would drive me to near insanity in my teenage years and early 20s.

The thing is, as much as I despised the teams in my division — the Eagles being one of them — sometimes a force so evil would come along that left me with no choice but to cheer for my own worst enemy.

Yeah, I’m talking about those Patriots teams that sucked every ounce of fun out of football for the better part of two decades. Brady, Belichick, and company destroyed just about every team that stood in their way. Sports fans outside the New England area know the sickening feeling that I’m talking about, watching them week after week mow down the rest of the league. It was joyless. It was infuriating. It was… painful.

What am I getting at, you ask?

Super Bowl 52: Patriots vs. Eagles.

An absolute nightmare scenario for any Giants fan like myself. One team, the Patriots, who consistently ruined any hopes of glory for the rest of the league… versus a team who drove me, personally, absolutely crazy several times a year and occasionally put me in a mood so cranky that no one in my family cared to be around me for at least the next 24-hours following a game.

Stay with me now, I’m getting to the point.

Despite the heartache that some of those Eagles teams caused me to feel over the years… I cheered them on in SuperBowl 52 so forcefully as they squared off against the detestable Patriots that you would’ve thought I was ready to hop on the next train to Philly to open up a cheesesteak shop.

This situation I just outlined for you is the exact sports equivalent of what we, as a nation, are facing in the upcoming 2020 election.

Our current president has driven this country to its absolute lowest point I have witnessed in my lifetime. He has sucked the pride out of many of us in being able to stand tall as Americans.

Much like the Patriots, our President has plowed through anyone who dares to oppose him. And much like the Patriots, he will resort to any tactics, legal or illegal, to get what he wants.

Shall I draw the comparisons?

The Patriots looked to steal opposing teams’ information in the ‘Spygate’ scandal of 2007, while the President looks to steal opposing candidates’ information in the Ukraine scandal of 2019. The Patriots are on record falsifying team injury reports to give themselves an advantage in the playoffs, while the President has purposefully removed funding to the USPS and has called into question mail-in-voting to falsify the election results. The Patriots intentionally deflated footballs to assist quarterback Tom Brady’s throwing, while the President is intentionally intercepting Covid-19 reports from the CDC to deflate the numbers to make his failed response to the pandemic look better.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

The Patriots won many SuperBowls, yes. And our current President won the 2016 election, yes.

But we’re sick and tired of them. We’re sick and tired of all the scandals, the cheating, the lying, the dishonesty, the misinformation… and now with this President, the criminal inaction that’s led to killing.

The exhaustion we’ve felt has been so constant, and we’re so fed up that many of us are ready to root for someone we don’t even like that much. We’re ready to root for the Eagles. We’re ready to root (and VOTE!) for Joe Biden.

This is not a difficult decision for me, as I tend to lean pretty heavily to the left. But to those of you who identify as conservative who are reading this, I beg of you to consider voting for the person you might normally identify as your enemy. When he wins — just like the Eagles did over New England in SuperBowl 52 — you might find he’s not as unlikable as you thought he was.

Hell, if you do take my advice, you might even be able to call yourself a true Patriot.