Choose Your Team
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.”
-Daniel Patrick Moynihan
When the New England Patriots and their star quarterback Tom Brady were accused of under-inflating the footballs prior to their AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts in 2015, supposedly to gain an advantage they hardly needed, since they rolled to a 45–7 trouncing of the Colts, the transgressions resulted in Brady’s four game suspension at the beginning of the next season, and a fine of $1 million and a loss of four draft picks for the Patriots.
Unsurprisingly, there were two divergent reactions among football fans across the country. According to a Dartmouth College study, fans of the other 31 teams strongly supported the findings and punishments, verifying their belief that not all of the Patriots’ success is attributable to skill and performance on the field, and that they and their grumpy coach, Bill Bellichick, will use any legal or illegal advantage to assure their continuing success. Of course New England fans saw the whole thing differently and merely as an attempt to punish them for their accomplishments, motivated by old-fashioned jealousy.
Which brings us to the impeachment hearings that are captivating the country, or not, as Democrats trot out a series of witnesses who are willing to say that President Trump threatened to withhold desperately needed aid to Ukraine until the neophyte Ukrainian president and former comedian Volodymyr Zelensky would publicly agree to investigate the doings of Trump’s most formidable rival Joe Biden and his son and the thoroughly debunked theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the plot to influence the 2016 election.
Where all of this goes is fairly predictable, as the likely end game is that the Democratic-controlled House will vote to impeach Trump over his abuse of power for personal gain, while the Republican-controlled the Senate will stick with the President and fail to provide the two-thirds majority needed to convict.
We like to believe that our elected representatives are in office to protect our democracy and act in the country’s best interest, but the truth, as verified by the Deflategate study, is that most people stick to their own team and interpret the facts with their biases intact. So, despite the drama that is going on before the House Intelligence Committee, we will end up just where we are today, with 49% of the country supporting impeachment and 46% opposed. Whether it will make a difference in the 2020 election remains to be seen, but I doubt that the impeachment proceedings will change anybody’s mind, and the election hinges on the same old factors: keeping your base intact and nudging just enough independent voters to your side to win certain key states.
There are, however, major differences between the current situation and Deflategate. Whether or not you believe that Tom Brady is a cheater, he is an amazing performer on the field and is among the greatest quarterbacks of all time. Trump will remain the incompetent buffoon, tweeting away about his inane conspiracy theories, but accomplishing little except to test the limits of the Constitution in his best attempt to undermine our democracy. Oh, and there is one other difference: Tom has a considerably hotter wife.
