Why a Patriots Super Bowl victory would be rolled MAGA gold

Thanks to Melania, there isn’t even a need to infer the association. That should be thanks to Melania, the documentary internationally panned as “unredeemable”, a “gilded infomercial”, an “accidental mockumentary” and a work of propaganda so artistically poor it would make Leni Riefenstahl squirm, among various other anti-compliments.

But the premiere in Washington, at least, did provide further evidence that Robert Kraft’s billionaire bromance with Donald Trump is back on. Because there the New England owner was, sitting right next to him in the presidential box at the Kennedy Centre, then joining in a standing ovation as if he had never not been a rusted-on ally.

As if he had never felt so upset by the January 6 insurrection that he’d distanced himself from a “social friend” dating back to the early 1990s, around the time he purchased the Patriots. Until recently, it seemed as if the Kraft who donated $1 million to Trump’s 2017 inauguration had ceased to exist. But then, it has been five years since the Capitol riots. Enough time for water to flow under the bridge, and for an absurdly influential 84-year-old to understand that moral standards aren’t what they once were, and it doesn’t matter anyway if you don’t have the ear of the autocrat.

And so here the pair were, two months after attending the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw together – Kraft was also a founding investor of Major League Soccer and helped secure the tournament’s hosting rights – back together at the same venue, presenting the world with a slice of pre-Super Bowl symbolism utterly perfect for these times. Unwittingly allegorical, in the same way Melania film director Brett Ratner almost certainly did not mean to parody the First Lady.

And teaching us what, exactly? Nothing of much actionable value, to be fair. But if the Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks in Monday’s NFL decider, we will have to acknowledge Trump’s America beamed back at us out of another major sporting orifice. It is unfortunate, given this might have finally been the season the franchise scrounged back some broad goodwill it has not experienced for two decades.

Not since the team in red, white and blue won their first title in the aftermath of 9/11, when Kraft’s post-game “We are all Patriots” speech and U2’s halftime show united the nation’s emotional intensity. New England were underdogs then, and Tom Brady MVP a second-year quarterback. That was the start of Bill Belichick’s overlord years, yielding six Super Bowl titles and too much success for mass appeal.

Now they are back after those several barren post-Brady/Belichick years, even underdogs for the first time since 2002 and punching above their weight under a loveable coach in Mark Vrabel. But a good coach who is also nice can only outweigh so much – and not just the claims that their turnaround from 4-13 last season to 17-3 this one is mainly courtesy of one of the easiest schedules in recent memory.