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It’s a good week to be Gavin Newsom.
Fresh off a flattering profile in Vogue magazine that called him “embarrassingly handsome,” “lithe, ardent, energetic” and “Kennedy-esque,” the California governor will enjoy the eyes of the world on his state when the Super Bowl comes to Santa Clara in Northern California on Sunday.
It’s the first of two back-to-back Super Bowls in California — next year’s is in Inglewood, which seems mildly unfair to the rest of the country. And Newsom is poised to take advantage of the exposure.
In a news release, he touts the economic advantages for the Golden State, which he calls “the sports capital of the world.” And he’s standing up for Bad Bunny, the controversial halftime entertainer, saying “California could not be more proud” to have him perform there.
That’s good politics, if you’re the governor of a blue state with the nation’s largest Hispanic population — 40%, according to census data. And the selection of Bad Bunny was arguably good, as well, for the National Football League, which needs to snag more young Americans as its fan base ages and America grows increasingly more diverse.
But it was a bad pick for a country that could have used 30 minutes of unity in an event seen around the world.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell insists that Bad Bunny, whose given name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, understands that the halftime show needs to be unifying. And the trailer for the show promises just that, proclaiming that “the world will dance” on Feb. 8.
But many conservatives are skeptical that that’s what this entertainer will deliver. It’s live TV, and the NFL hasn’t been able to protect us from “wardrobe malfunctions” in years past; they’re not going to cut to black if Bad Bunny has a “microphone malfunction” that results in a political statement.
So come Sunday, we’re faced with the prospect of Americans watching football together for two quarters, then retreating to our ideological silos during halftime. It seems a missed opportunity, especially in the year of the nation’s 250th anniversary with the most massive TV audience of the year.
As I have previously written, surely there was middle ground between Bad Bunny and Lee Greenwood. And if not, why not feature Bad Bunny and Lee Greenwood? Instead, we’re also getting the rock band Green Day, whose members have spoken out not just against President Donald Trump but his supporters.
Presumably Green Day was selected because its members are from the San Francisco Bay Area; they will perform during the opening ceremony as former Super Bowl MVPs are introduced.
But their selection lands as a thumb to the nose of every American who voted for Trump. Let’s hope they got the same unity memo from Goodell that Bad Bunny did.
Meanwhile, with President Trump saying he won’t be at this year’s big game, the Super Bowl is Gavin Newsom’s to lose.
A reason to pull for the Patriots
If the memes are to be believed, 99% of the country is pulling for the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. That’s understandable, given the Patriots’ dominance in recent decades.
But people without a dog in this fight might want to take a closer look at New England’s 23-year-old quarterback, Drake Maye, who is using his time in the spotlight to promote something you don’t often hear NFL players talking about: the joy of marriage.
Maye and his wife, Ann Michael, have been dating since they were in middle school, and they were married last June in North Carolina, where they’re from.
Although New England states have the lowest marriage rates in the nation, the region loves sports and winners, and New Englanders have embraced the young couple and their domestic bliss, even following along as Maye’s wife shared recipes over social media at Christmastime. (Patriots fans are calling her “the queen of the North” and already speculating about when they will start a family.)
Maybe they’ll start a much-needed baby boom in New England.
A reason to pull for the Seahawks
All that said, it’s hard to also not love Sam Darnold, the 28-year-old quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks. He’s a bit behind Maye in the marriage department: Darnold and his girlfriend Katie Hoofnagle got engaged last summer. But he’s a — checks notes — birdwatcher who uses an app to identify birds by their sounds. There’s something so wholesome about that.
There’s also this quote attributed to Darnold’s grandfather in an article about NFL players who are people of faith: “I can tell you that we will never read about Sam on TMZ.”
Got to love that.
And finally, there would be some sort of karmic justice in Darnold leading the Seahawks to victory over a franchise that once made him a meme when he was playing for the New York Jets and came up against a Patriots defense that made him say he was “seeing ghosts.”
Bottom line: Both Maye and Darnold seem like outstanding young men.
Recommended reading
Most media reaction to the “Melania” documentary has been savage. Eva Terry offers a completely different view of the film that opened in theaters last week.
An excerpt:
“As these writers criticize Melania for her outward stoicism, it appears they don’t understand why she wants to be outwardly cool. They are writing about a woman who cannot walk anywhere by herself without safety concerns. A woman who went to Mass alone on the one-year anniversary of her mother’s death, accompanied only by body guards. Who gets scrutinized when she speaks and dissected when she refrains.”
I’m sorry, fellow journalists, you’re wrong about ‘Melania’
Americans may disagree on the Trump administration efforts to deport people in the country illegally, but the fact is, we need more immigrants, not fewer, Jay Evensen argues.
“Except for Montana and West Virginia ... every state in the union is seeing a decline in growth due to fewer births and less migration. Utah remained among the top five fastest-growing states, but its 1% growth rate (translating to 36,000 new residents) was due primarily to new births.”
America keeps immigrants away at its own peril
Valerie Hudson examined The Heritage Foundation’s blueprint to boost America’s birth rate: a 250-year plan that is ambitious, but to her thinking, fails on several fronts.
“The most disappointing part of the document is its tired screed against feminism, which is painted as the font of all societal evil. Poor Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan get trotted out as the harpies who destroyed the American family. It really is time for the conservative movement to admit that the feminism of the 1960s and 1970s was a completely rational reaction to the situation of women at the time. ”
The Heritage Foundation stumbles in its plan to save the family
End notes
Former Auburn football coach and current Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has dubbed this year’s Super Bowl “the Woke Bowl” and said he’ll be tuning into the Turning Point USA halftime show instead of watching “Bad Bunny or Bad Rabbit at halftime.”
Give that man a halftime show.