The Super Political Bowl – All The Politics You Missed In The Big Game (TWEETS/VIDEO)

Baseball might still be the national pastime, but football has always had a tendency to bring politics to the forefront. This year, if you knew where to look and how to see it, Super Bowl LI was no different.

Here’s where, how, and why the Big Game was rife with political statements and analogies, from the game to the commercials to the halftime entertainment.

1. The Game

In a game between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons, you might have guessed where the politics aligned. The Patriots came from New England, the bastion of liberalism, where not a single county voted for Trump, and played in blue uniforms. The Falcons, on the other hand, came from Georgia, in the deep south, and played in red.

Wrong.

The Patriots have long had a cozy relationship with Donald Trump. Quarterback Tom Brady, head coach Bill Belichick, and owner Robert Craft are all friends with the president. The team itself has a history of ignoring inconvenient rules, cheating, and getting away with blatant league violations with nary a slap of the wrist, like Trump. They’ve attained the Platonic Ideal of Donald Trump: To win so often that they get bored of winning. Trump likes the Patriots so much, he stopped watching the game when he thought they were going to lose.

The Nazi supporters of Trump also like the Patriots for other, racist reasons.

Because of Trump’s support of the Patriots, the Falcons attracted liberals across the country. These new Falcons fans saw the championship game awash in political themes even before kickoff: George Bush, who just couldn’t find the time to attend Trump’s inauguration (like so many others), managed to be there to flip the coin before the game.

And then the game started. The Falcons stormed into the lead, 28-3, effectively cementing their victory. At one point, FiveThirtyEight gave the Patriots a 0.5% chance of winning.

Nevertheless, the Patriots mounted a miraculous, mind-boggling, against all odds comeback that left everyone dumbfounded, pulling out a 34-28 victory in overtime. In so doing, New England benefited from one of the silliest rules of football – the coin flip to determine possession in a sudden-death overtime – to take the lead and the win. Technically, the Patriots won the game while leading the Falcons for exactly zero seconds.

The analogies to the 2016 presidential election were everywhere.

2. The Commercials

Politics were not relegated to the playing field, either. The commercials were rife with political statements that surely rankled the administration and its supporters.

AirBnB’s short ad left little doubt where they stood, when it came to Trump’s travel ban or the Republicans’ long-term animosity toward the LGBT community:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qUTYHnLz2g

Audi stepped in with a take-no-prisoners statement about gender equality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6u10YPk_34

Audi’s commercial, of course, comes at a time when the president’s cabinet includes only two women: Betsy DeVos, who bought her seat, and Elaine Chao, who’s married to the leading Republican in the Senate.

Even Budweiser delivered a political statement in its ad. Responding to the wave of white nationalism that brought Trump to the White House, Budweiser reminded everyone that immigrants are what made America what it is today. Even Adolphus Busch, one-half of the Anheuser-Busch partnership that gave the world Budweiser, once had to put up with the immigrant shunning behind many of America’s policies, today:

Republican voters, after seeing the ad, initiated a boycott of Budweiser. Without standby Bud Light, though, Trumpkins might find themselves the closest they’ve ever come to an existential crisis. Maybe they’ll start drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, instead, but only ironically.

Lumber 84 also used their Super Bowl advertising to say something against Trump’s immigration policies. The extended version of their 90-second ad that they posted on their website hammers the cornerstone of Trump’s campaign promises – the wall along the Mexican border:

3. Lady Gaga’s Halftime Show

After claiming that her halftime show wouldn’t pull any political punches, many were disappointed in lack of politics or satanic rituals in Lady Gaga’s halftime show. However, the political statements were there, if you knew where to look.

Lady Gaga has long sang a simple political message: Inclusion.

In her opening sequence, Lady Gaga’s use of the red and blue drone lights behind her symbolizes people of different political mindsets coming together. Throughout the show, this red and blue symbolism had a constant presence.

Her set list was equally political, even if it wasn’t blatant. In the opening sequence, while red and blue drones hovered behind her, Lady Gaga transitioned seamlessly from the patriotic God Bless America into the socialist folk song This Land Is Your Land. But then she ripped into a line of gay anthems, headlined by her hit Born This Way. Not political? Here are some lyrics you might have missed, dealing with growing up gay, or just different:

Don’t be a drag, just be a queen
Whether you’re broke or evergreen
You’re black, white, beige, chola descent
You’re Lebanese, you’re orient
Whether life’s disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied, or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
’cause baby you were born this way

No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life,
I’m on the right track baby,
I was born to survive.

Remember, vice president Mike Pence has been tagged as a supporter of conversion therapy. Who was there, at the game, listening to millions of people cheer on that song? Mike Pence.

Featured image by andrew campbell via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.