This is a larger symptom of our country IMO and probably the world at large.
I'm pretty logic-inclined and have always believed you can have an argument on its own merits and whoever has the superior reasoning wins the argument.
The past few years, maybe even starting right around the whole Deflategate scandal, I don't think that's the case anymore. People choose which side of the argument they want to be on based on what group they belong to, and then they disagree with the other group regardless of how good a point that group has. Any evidence that goes against their side is disregarded irrationally.
This happens in sports, where tribal alliance is easily defined since it's just your own team (but it's usually easier to have a discussion about some things because wins and losses usually provide a hard cutoff about whose side is 'better' in a given year). Of course in politics, reason has completely gone out the window, and God help you if you try to have any discussion on its own merit when you're arguing with the other side.
Combine that with the fact that people are easily distracted, can't focus on one thing for very long, have trouble with nuance and shades of gray, and in many cases are just really ****ing stupid, spike it with conspiracy theories, social media, and tiny screens in our pocket, and you get situations in the OP where no matter what you tell them about how the Patriots 'scandals' were either due to the laws of physics, were fabricated, or were technical violations that contributed nothing to their success, they still won't come over to your side because the sense of wanting to belong to their own group outweighs their sense of reason.
