Remember when snack choices fueled the most contentious debates around Super Bowl halftime? Cheetos versus Doritos. Spicy wings versus garlic knots. And who the hell brought carrot sticks?!
Now Turning Point USA, the far-right organization founded by slain MAGA activist Charlie Kirk, has presented its followers with tougher choices: Who should play the Super Bowl LX halftime show?
Never mind that the NFL already announced earlier this month that Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny had landed the spot. Turning Point USA announced Thursday that it would host its own counterprogramming in protest of the league's choice. It will be called “The All American Halftime Show” and it will surely be No be in Spanish.
Ever since the NFL announced that Bad Bunny (real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) would play in the Big Game on February 8 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, critics have been denouncing the decision as an assault on Americanism.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said hiring Bad Bunny was “a terrible decision.”
President Trump, who admitted he had never heard of Bad Bunny before the Super Bowl announcement in late September, said the NFL's booking of the artist was “absolutely ridiculous.”
White House adviser Corey Lewandowski said it was “shameful that they decided to pick someone who seems to hate America so much.”
However, compared to other artists and celebrities who have widely criticized the president and his policies, Bad Bunny is not as political or as outspoken. However, he has expressed concern about the possibility of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detaining fans at his concerts. The artist said last month that he would not book any US dates for his tour for fear that ICE would devastate his fans. “There was the question of, like, fuck, ICE might be out there.” [my concert]. And it's something we were talking about and that worried us a lot,” he told iD magazine.
That was enough to consider Bad Bunny an enemy of the MAGA state and characterize his Super Bowl show as part of a larger, hostile Latino invasion.
But let's call it what it is: politicians and their experts taking advantage of Hispanophobia to obtain votes, influence and donations. The artist represents a population that has been targeted by the current administration through unconstitutional raids of people of color in American cities, regardless of their immigration status. Bad Bunny is a US citizen, like many of the people without criminal records who have been detained and even deported. Vilifying the artist and those who look and talk like him has generated votes for the right and deflected concerns about the fragile economy and the rising cost of living under Trump.
Turning Point advertises its planned counterprogramming as a “Celebrating Faith, Family and Freedom” program and asks fans to weigh in on what musical genres they would like to hear at the alternative halftime show. The first option on the ballot? “Anything in English.”
The survey is located just below the donate button and another option to click “yes” to approve receiving “recurring automated fundraising and promotional texts from Turning Point.”
Even though the 79-year-old president had never heard of the popular artist before, Bad Bunny has won three Grammy Awards, is a global superstar and has surpassed Taylor Swift's Billboard chart numbers in the US.
So who does MAGA think it can reach out to upstage Bad Bunny in its unofficial Super Bowl side show? House Speaker Johnson suggested that “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood would appeal to a “broader audience.” But as Variety noted, the '80s country icon has fewer than 500,000 listeners on Spotify, compared to Bad Bunny's 80 million.
Turning Point USA appears to be working on that problem. “Artists and event details will be available soon,” a statement on their site said.
During his guest appearance on “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, Bad Bunny poked fun at the MAGA hype surrounding his upcoming Super Bowl show, delivering his monologue in Spanish. He sincerely thanked his fans for recognizing the contributions of Latinos in the United States. Then, in closing, he turned to English: “If you didn't understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”
The jury is still out on whether chips, salsa and guacamole will become the next target of the right's performative, fundraising outrage. Make pretzels great again.
