MAGA's fake Super Bowl halftime show reveals their real failures

[marmar]

MAGA’s fake Super Bowl halftime show reveals their real failures
Turning Point USA's followers are pitifully out-of-touch with pop culture

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published October 15, 2025 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) If you’re looking for an illustration of “coping mechanism,” you’ll find no better example than MAGA’s reaction to Turning Point USA (TPUSA) announcing “The All American Halftime Show,” an alternative to the actual Super Bowl halftime show, airing on Feb. 8. The event doesn’t have a lineup or even a location yet. But what the far-right organization, co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk, does have is a groundswell of racist rage about the real Super Bowl halftime show, which will feature reggaeton star Bad Bunny.

There are contorted excuses for why MAGA is so mad that Bad Bunny, an American citizen born in Puerto Rico, would snag this plum gig. But absolutely no one is confused about the real source of the anger. Mr. Bunny, whose real name is Benito Martínez Ocasio, raps and sings almost exclusively in Spanish. The delicate snowflakes of the right react to that language, which is spoken at home by over 40 million Americans, like it’s the summer sun swiftly melting them into the whiniest vapor imaginable.

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On their website, TPUSA asked people to vote on what genre of music they want to see featured. “Anything in English” was the first option, lest you worry they care more about music than they do about hating anyone they don’t see as white. The results haven’t been announced yet, so we can’t know if “Classic Rock” will beat out “worship” music. But on X, there were plenty of eager Trump fans offering suggestions about the kind of artists they think will top Bad Bunny, who has been streamed nearly 100 billion times on Spotify.

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All of this reflects what is a small ray of hope in our bleak political moment. MAGA’s relationship with pop culture only has two forms: Complete cluelessness and/or resentment that most people think their taste stinks. This matters, because it’s been a truism on the far-right for decades now that capturing the culture is the key to obtaining their larger political goals. MAGA influencers love to repeat, like parrots, Andrew Breitbart’s motto that “politics is downstream from culture.” The Christian right also has a version of this, which Kirk promoted: The “seven mountains mandate,” which holds that is crucial for conservative Christians to control pop culture. Over the years, untold amounts of money have been poured by right-wing donors and investors into remaking the culture in MAGA’s image, in hopes that will turn American hearts toward authoritarianism and evangelical Christianity. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/10/15/magas-fake-super-bowl-halftime-show-reveals-their-real-failures/