Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

A consequence of cucumbers

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Fight them, without becoming them!

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

In my day, never was longer.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The lights are all blinking red.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Schadenfreude Open Thread: Tom Brady Only Likes Winners

Schadenfreude Open Thread: Tom Brady Only Likes Winners

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From what I’ve seen over the past several years (you can’t live in the Boston media market and not hear about Tom Brady), TFG’s always been a lot more enamored of Brady than Brady ever was with him. This seems in character, because Mr. Brady famously does not waste his extremely valuable attention on sideshows — he’s strictly about Being The GOAT in His Chosen Endeavors.

Given a fistful-plus of Superbowl rings and a wife who’s a genuine supermodel (and a billionaire in her own right), it’s not as though Brady might need anything from his highest-profile groupie…

… To grasp why such an anodyne scene would produce such a wounding effect on a man who has endured misfortunes such as bankruptcy, losing a presidential election, two impeachments, and innumerable legal setbacks, one needs to understand his peculiar psychology. Here, in rough order, is Trump’s hierarchy of needs:

1. To be treated as a winner

2. To pal around with celebrities

3. To not be laughed at

4. To gain the specific approval of Tom Brady

Trump’s special obsession with Brady goes back years, when he would devote his now-suspended Twitter account to vocally defending the quarterback against penalties for using a deflated football…

The relationship always had an asymmetric quality. Brady repeatedly expressed discomfort at Trump’s public adulation, and has declined to talk about who he voted for. In 2017, he skipped a White House invitation to celebrate a previous Super Bowl win, citing his need to attend to his ailing mother. The snub, according to the Washington Post, sent Trump into a rage…

Biden and Brady, together at the house Trump used to live in and hoped to never leave, basking in their winner-ness and laughing at Trump. Donald Trump would rather relive Election Night a thousand times than see this day.

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  6. 6.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @debbie:

    Brady. At least he seems to have a sense of humor that doesn’t boil down to viciously punching down

  7. 7.

    Mousebumples

    This thread here will soon see the thermometer jump when I make the matching donation, as promised, to match the more than $2,000 you guys donated to Voces de la Frontera today.

    I live in Wisconsin (#BucksInSix #FearTheDeer), and i know how important the 2022 elections will be in this state.

    ✅ Re elect Tony Evers

    ✅ Fire Ron Johnson

    ✅ Try to flip the Wisconsin State Houses with new maps

    Voces is an important tool for that, and one that I’m proud to support.

    I know my matching is done for the day, but if you guys have a little extra scratch and can chip in to help Voces get closer to finding that organizer position.

    Thanks again, everyone! Stuff like this is why I love this community so much! ?

  9. 9.

    James E Powell

    If memory serves, Tom Brady having a MAGA hat in his locker was one of the early legitimizing moments in Trumps ascent. I never liked him after that.

    Gisele Bündchen is a super model, but her (estimated) net worth is less than half a billion.

  10. 10.

    zhena gogolia

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I know less than nothing about him. He’s likable in that clip.

    I was so touched that I had to go to the Wikipedia article to explain who he was to my husband. He worships Sonny Jurgensen.

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    Has he issued one of those pouty Tweets press releases yet? Ordinarily wouldn’t read them , but the call of schadenfreude is strong.

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Brady. At least he seems to have a sense of humor that doesn’t boil down to viciously punching down

    Great point.

    And it is refreshing to see athletes, musicians and celebrities who actually want to come to the White House.

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    @James E Powell:

    Gisele Bündchen is a super model, but her (estimated) net worth is less than half a billion.

    Yeah, I was curious about this. One 2021 estimate has her net worth at $400 million, and Tom Brady’s net worth at $250 million.

    No matter how you slice it, not too shabby.

  23. 23.

    debbie

    Has anyone read Adam Serwer’s The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America yet? The title alone is great.

  27. 27.

    craigie

    Might be fun to turn TFG’s Twitter account back on just for the day – you know, to watch him break down in public.

  29. 29.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    first time a full Super Bowl winning team has visited the WH in 5 years.

    a smattering of the Patriots (sans Brady) showed up in 2017, but not one person showed up in 2018, 2019, 2020. I guess they didn’t like being called “sonsofbitches” who should be “fired”

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    No matter how you slice it, not too shabby.

    Yep.  And Brady is apparently not intimidated by a woman who’s at the top of her field.  That isn’t everything, but it isn’t nothing, either.

  34. 34.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @Roger Moore: ​  nor intimidated by a woman who make way more money than he does.

    On the down side he’s a Yankees fan (photo)​​

  39. 39.

    Josie

    I am a terrible person because I am in favor of anything that makes TFG suffer in any way possible. He has brought suffering to so many that he deserves whatever anyone wants to dish out to him. It will never be enough for me.

  41. 41.

    JCJ

    Drove to Whitefish Bay (just north of Milwaukee) to a park by Lake Michigan this afternoon.  On the way home I drove near the Bucks arena about 5:30.  The number of people going to the Deer District by Fiserv Forum was amazing.  Go Bucks!

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    Just want to note Olympics competition has begun, and I’m watching Australia and Japan women’s softball.

    Tomorrow, the other football begins in the form of the women’s soccer tournament. US v Sweden is our toughest match in the group and they could meet again later, because Sweden is one of the best teams in the table.

  44. 44.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    It was smoky in Ohio, too. Apparently from the wildfires in Canada/the West. It was weird looking

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Fair point

    @Brachiator:

    Indeed it is. No serving them greasy fast food either

    @James E Powell:

    Eww, I forgot all about that

    @debbie:

    Forget it debbie, it’s Facebooktown. You can’t fix stupid. Would be interested to see what the reaction is among Republican voters now that Mitch McConnell has called for everyone to get vaccinated. As a commenter the other day observed, Republicans who say things like that tend to get shouted down, called a RINO, and kicked out of the bubble

  50. 50.

    Roger Moore

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Would be interested to see what the reaction is among Republican voters now that Mitch McConnell has called for everyone to get vaccinated.

    AFAIK, McConnell has always encouraged people to get vaccinated.  He hasn’t been gung ho about it, but he was never onboard with the antivax stuff.  He seems to be less in thrall to Trump than any other high ranking member of the Republican party.  He’s still a despicable excuse for a human being, but at least he hasn’t been awful in every conceivable way.

  51. 51.

    James E Powell

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Would be interested to see what the reaction is among Republican voters now that Mitch McConnell has called for everyone to get vaccinated.

    It’s the Pivot to the New Tone! Alert Dana Bash!

    No doubt. A new narrative is about to be launched. Some focus group tested bullshit that will get the press/media to ask whether it was the Democrats who were always anti-vaccination.

  53. 53.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Chris Hayes is stumped that Thomas Barrack committed crime when he’s already rich.

    I guess you have to be really dumb or naive to get a tee vee show.

  55. 55.

    Butter Emails

    @Roger Moore:

    AFAIK, McConnell has always encouraged people to get vaccinated.  He hasn’t been gung ho about it, but he was never onboard with the antivax stuff.  He seems to be less in thrall to Trump than any other high ranking member of the Republican party.  He’s still a despicable excuse for a human being, but at least he hasn’t been awful in every conceivable way.

    That bar is set low enough to decapitate and earthworm.

  61. 61.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Here, in rough order, is Trump’s hierarchy of needs:

    1. To be treated as a winner

    2. To pal around with celebrities

    3. To not be laughed at

    Man, he really screwed the pooch on that with Russia, China, and North Korea. Not literally – though in Trump’s case, I think we *do* need to specify that we’re not talking about the literal sexual relations with an actual Canis familiaris.

    Because you never know. He may have heard that dog was the alpha, and *he* could order the secret service… I’m going to stop right here.

  62. 62.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Roger Moore: In the 70s, there was a toy named slime
    and it could ooze through almost anything not watertight, eventually.

    It truly is irresponsible *not* to speculate.

  64. 64.

    JML

    Brady is someone who is really good at football and very smart about that topic and things that relate directly to it. I’m not sure he can form a complete sentence about much else. He’s more than once given off the impression that he can be easily swayed or that he’s never really thought with any depth about things like social justice, politics, etc. Exactly the sort of guy who would be handed a MAGA hat by Robert Craft (a Trump crony) and think “Yeah, I want America to be great! That seems good.” and never think anything more about it.

    JMO.

  65. 65.

    sanjeevs

    @Martin: It’s weird that clearly an order came down for the GOP and RW media to do a 180 on the vax but we don’t know who did it.

  66. 66.

    James E Powell

    @JML:

    There was a local Boston show that did regular maybe weekly interviews with Brady. He spoke like a very bright person there. I read an interview with him years ago in which he said that when asked to speak he tries to say the most boring, meaningless thing he can think of because he hates being interviewed.

    I can see that. One of my favorite parts of being an attorney is giving terse “no comments”

  67. 67.

    p.a.

    I’m sad that Brady left New England: he and Belichick seem to deserve each other, making each other miserable the way they did the last few years.

  68. 68.

    James E Powell

    @sanjeevs:

    I have no idea who made the call(s) but I’ve said from day one of the Trump nightmare, the money guys could shut this down whenever they want.

  70. 70.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @trollhattan: ​

      Here’s a good way to find which channel is showing the matches (link)

    Additionally, all the matches will be online.​

  71. 71.

    Elizabelle

    Fun reason “Dolly Parton” is trending.  It is her husband’s 79th birthday, and she has dressed up as a Playboy bunny to celebrate.  She says she’d promised to be on Playboy’s cover for her 75th birthday, but the magazine is not around any more.

    I don’t know how to capture the tweet, but someone will …  She looks great.  Of course.

  77. 77.

    Anya

    Still doesn’t change the stupid red hat and getting PPE grants and not respecting COVID protocols. Having said that, honestly I’ve misjudged this dude. I always thought he was dumb.

  78. 78.

    mrmoshpotato

    A refresher – via Karoli

    The coverage of the Tom Barrack indictment, one of Trump’s closest friends, for illegal lobbying for the UAE, suggests to me that a lot of the shocking revelations about Trump & UAE have gone down the memory hole. Let’s revisit. (1/whatever)https://t.co/RI0Zrj35Xi— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) July 21, 2021

    Go Zips! Fear The Roo!

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    Taking into account that AHIP is a health insurance industry trade association and lobbying concern of, shall we say, less than progressive bent, still feel this should be noted.

    Everyone should be able to get the COVID-19 tests they need, and health insurance providers have worked throughout the pandemic to ensure that people have access to tests needed COVID-19 testing. But new data from AHIP show that price gouging on COVID-19 tests by certain providers continues to be a widespread problem, threatening patients’ ability to get the testing they need.
    [snip]
    Between May and June of 2021, AHIP conducted a survey of health insurance providers in the commercial market to gather information on prices charged by out-of-network providers for diagnostic, antibody, and antigen tests for COVID-19. This builds upon results from previous AHIP surveys on COVID-19 testing. Source

  82. 82.

    PaulWartenberg

    Okay, long-time Bucs fan here, and it was fun to see my team visit the White House while a Sane President was able to host them.

    I’m not fully a Tom Brady fan – I still think DeflateGate was legit – I do respect his accomplishments overall.

    I understand that Brady’s long-standing relationship with trump and other questionable figures – asshole team owners for example – makes it hard to fully accept him, but dammit his drunk trophy-throwing ways during the boat parade warmed my heart.

  84. 84.

    Another Scott

    In other news, Hubble is back, but SuperBIT is coming. Phys.org:

    […]

    The Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (or SuperBIT) has a 0.5 meter diameter mirror and is carried to 40km altitude by a helium balloon with a volume of 532,000 cubic meters, about the size of a football stadium.

    Its final test flight in 2019 demonstrated extraordinary pointing stability, with variation of less than one thirty-six thousandth of a degree for more than an hour. This should enable a telescope to obtain images as sharp as those from the Hubble Space Telescope.

    Nobody has done this before, not only because it is exceedingly difficult, but also because balloons could stay aloft for only a few nights: too short for an ambitious experiment. However, NASA recently developed ‘superpressure’ balloons able to contain helium for months. SuperBIT is scheduled to launch on the next long duration balloon, from Wanaka, New Zealand, in April. Carried by seasonally stable winds, it will circumnavigate the Earth several times—imaging the sky all night, then using solar panels to recharge its batteries during the day.

    [image]
    A SuperBIT optical and ultraviolet composite image of the ‘Pillars of Creation’, trunks of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, 7,000 light years away in the direction of the constellation of Serpens. Credit: SuperBIT team, from Romualdez et al. (2018) SPIE 10702.

    With a budget for construction and operation for the first telescope of US$5 million (£3.62 million), SuperBIT cost almost 1000 times less than a similar satellite. Not only are balloons cheaper than rocket fuel, but the ability to return the payload to Earth and relaunch it means that its design has been tweaked and improved over several test flights. Satellites must work first time, so typically have (phenomenally expensive) redundancy, and decade-old technology that had to be space-qualified by the previous mission. Modern digital cameras improve every year—so the development team bought the cutting-edge camera for SuperBIT’s latest test flight a few weeks before launch. This space telescope will continue to be upgradable, or have new instruments on every future flight.

    […]

    Those Montgolfier Brothers were on to something…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  88. 88.

    Benw

    You make me feel LIKE A PONY so good! LIKE A PONY come on! LIKE A PONY so good! Oh yeah YEAH yeah YEAH

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