Sunday’s Chicago Bears game served as an unexpected allegory for everything wrong with President Donald Trump’s Republican Party. 

Nearing halftime and down 3-6 in a rainy affair in Chicago, the Bears were hoping to secure a score before heading into the locker room. On a second down of a penalty-saturated possession, quarterback Caleb Williams called for the snap out of a shotgun formation and almost instantaneously found himself barreling the wrong way out of the pocket, abandoning his progressions. As Williams fled right, his internal clock telegraphed the two dueling options: throw the ball away or take the sack. Just as he was clipped, Williams threw a dart toward the ground near the chain gang out of bounds, presumably intending to regroup and start fresh with a new play. But a penalty flag came in from the side judge. Intentional grounding was the call. In the NFL, a quarterback is allowed to throw the ball away if he gets out of the pocket, but the thrown ball must pass the line of scrimmage in flight. Williams’s throw landed several feet shy of that mark.