Nobody refused to honor our flag. No kneeling, no fists raised defiantly against our national anthem. Nobody took advantage of their employers' very public letterhead to denigrate the things that symbolize our hard fought greatness and our best intentions. Nope. Instead, every member of two football teams locked arms in a circle of solidarity, speaking volumes in one silent gesture about what is right with our country, and how we can make it better.
Like a lot of football fans, though, I switched over to the great debate, the Superbowl of America's newest spectator sport that is the 2016 presidential election. The culmination of a seemingly endless flag burning in which we have chosen to take seriously a candidate who denigrates everything and everybody and values only himself. For ninety minutes, I entertained myself by sharing incredulity in multiple text conversations and trading audible gasps and occasional punches in the shoulder with my viewing companion.
Here's why I am a newly minted football fan:
(1) some awkward and tasteless attempts to make a point have led to soul searching and even some better ways to make a point; and
(2) even though one team will win and one team will lose, both opponents know how to play.
And to think I used to be troubled by W's grammatical issues. Or a little bit of pandering here and there. Oh, how I yearn for the dignity of old fashioned politics and strange bedfellows. How did we get here? As I drove past Springfield, Illinois yesterday on my way home from St. Louis, I nodded in silent apology toward Lincoln's profile on a billboard.
The biggest difference between Mark Cuban and Gennifer Flowers is not that Mark Cuban is still good looking. This a season of false equivalencies and non sequiturs, and I hate myself for paying attention. My only explanation? Fear, with a healthy dose of despair.
I am learning to love football. Big League.*
*In all fairness, he did not, as many of us thought, use the word "bigly." That would be silly.
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