This is a wonderful review of the Super Bowl half time show that bitter old Trump trashed last night.
Am I disappointed that the Pats didn’t win? Sure. But I enjoyed watching the half time show and the exuberance and love Bad Bunny brought to it
Michael Garrett, NC Senate
I watched Bad Bunny deliver the most American halftime show I have ever seen. Then I came home and watched it again. And I am not okay. In the best possible way.
He sang every single word in Spanish. Every. Single. Word. He danced through sugarcane fields built on a football field in California while the President of the United States sat somewhere calling it “disgusting.” Lady Gaga came out and did the salsa. Ricky Martin lit up the night. A couple got married on the field. He handed his Grammy, the one he won eight days ago for Album of the Year, to a little boy who looked up at him the way every child looks up when they dare to believe the world has a place for them.
And then this man, this son of a truck driver and a schoolteacher from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, stood on the biggest stage on the planet and said “God bless America.”
And then he started naming them.
Chile. Argentina. Uruguay. Paraguay. Bolivia. Peru. Ecuador. Brazil. Colombia. Venezuela. Panama. Costa Rica. Nicaragua. Honduras. El Salvador. Guatemala. Mexico. Cuba. Dominican Republic. Jamaica. The United States. Canada. And then, his voice breaking with everything he carries, “Mi patria, Puerto Rico. Seguimos aquí.” My homeland, Puerto Rico. We are still here.
The flags came. Every single one of them. Carried across that field by dancers and musicians while the jumbotron lit up with the only words that mattered: “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.”
I teared up. I’m not ashamed to say it. I sat on my couch and I wept because THAT is the America I believe in. That is the American story, not the sanitized, gated, English-only version that small and frightened people try to sell us. The REAL one. The messy, beautiful, multilingual, multicolored, courageous one. The one that has always been built by hands that speak every language and pray in every tongue and come from every corner of this hemisphere.
That is the America I want Jack and Charlotte to know. That when the moment came, when the whole world was watching, a Puerto Rican kid who grew up to become the most-streamed artist on Earth stood in front of 100 million people, sang in his mother’s language, blessed every nation in the Americas, and spiked a football that read “Together, we are America” into the ground. Not with anger. With joy. With love so big it made hate look exactly as small as it is.
And what did the President do? He called it “absolutely terrible.” He said “nobody understands a word this guy is saying.” He called it “a slap in the face to our Country.” The leader of the free world watched a celebration of love, culture, and everything this hemisphere has given to the world, and all he could see was something foreign. Something threatening. Something disgusting.
Let that sink into your bones.
The man who is supposed to represent all of us looked at the flags of our neighbors, heard the language of 500 million Americans across this hemisphere, and felt attacked. That’s not strength. That’s not patriotism. That is poverty of the soul.
And then there was the Turning Point show. Kid Rock in a college arena in North Dakota. Three million viewers watching a man who once wrote a song about liking underage girls perform as the “family-friendly” alternative to a Puerto Rican artist celebrating love. They called it the “All-American Halftime Show”, as if America has a velvet rope. As if this country belongs to some of us and not all of us. As if you need to sing in English to count.
Here’s what I want to say to everyone who posted about that show tonight, who shared it proudly, who turned away from Bad Bunny’s celebration because it was in Spanish and the flags weren’t only red, white, and blue:
Your children will see those posts. Your grandchildren will find them. The internet doesn’t forget. And one day, when the history of this moment is written, when our kids and their kids look back at 2026 the way we look back at the people who stood on the wrong side of every bridge and every march and every moment that mattered, they will know exactly where you stood. They will see who chose Kid Rock over a hemisphere of flags. They will see who called love “disgusting.” And they will carry that knowledge the way all of us carry the knowledge of what our ancestors did when they were tested.
I don’t say that with anger. I say it with sadness. Because hate is an inheritance nobody asks for, and yet it gets passed down just the same.
Bad Bunny didn’t say “ICE out” tonight. He didn’t need to. He just showed the whole world what America looks like when we are not afraid of each other. When culture is shared, not policed. When language is music, not a threat. When a flag from every nation in this hemisphere can walk across a football field together and the only words you need are the ones he gave us:
The only thing more powerful than hate is love.
Over 100 million people saw that tonight.
And no Truth Social post can take it away.
11 comments:
...not without a great race non-essentialist antimeme anyways. Something to make them forget that they are Hispanics/ Pardos, and embrace being Americanos. And THAT is NOT Bad Bunny's message.
Watched it and didn't understand anything he said but it was high energy. I couldn't watch more than 10 minutes of the SB because I got tired of watching Maye get mauled. The Seahawks defense was awesome while the other team forgot to show up.
The SB is more about hype and less about football and this one was all hype and no football.
A beautiful expression of truth Shaw! Well done.
Namaste...
And for the haters of truth, those who cling to the illusions of their ignorance, life is far better when you see the good in all peoples. Love is the most positive force there is. Hate is the deepest most destructive negative force. And that is truly what Trump has turned the republican party and MAGA into.
In 1981 one of my best friends in all of Mexico went to a Queen concert in Puebla. He spoke no English, understood few if any of the words and to this day, says it is the best concert he's ever seen.
In 2013, my wife and a friend of ours, neither of whom speaks Spanish at all, went with me to a Lila Downs concert at the House of Blues. Lila, from Oaxaca, sings in Spanish, Mixteco, French and English. That night none of her songs were performed in English, so my wife and friend understood nothing apart from a few words. But they 100% enjoyed the concert.
Newsflash folks... it's a new world. A melting pot is going to have a lot of different flavors, all rising to the top at different times.
Here's what I saw last night during all the entertainment at the Super Bowl.
Off the charts patriotism, the red, white and blue everywhere, people crying tears of joy for their country, flag, military, team and cultures being celebrated.
In short, I saw America. And all of what makes us great.
Bad Bunny is the biggest, most watched, most streamed music artist in the WORLD. He's a US citizen, born in our country and eligible to be POTUS. The NFL is a business, looking to expand. Next year 9 games will be played outside the US, including Mexico and Spain.
They are trying to grow their brand, their league and their business.
It was a great decision, a great show, totally capitalistic and fully American.
President Reagan in his final speech as president spoke of the importance of immigrants and diversity of people and cultures in and coming to America. Last night was exactly what he praised.
And might I say for those who did watch the show and saw the sets... all those plants and greenery? After Bad Bunny left the stage, the plants and all that got up and walked off the field. There were people inside all those "plants"!
Skud just about got the game analysis right. We've had some great games, like the previous Pats/Seahawks game that ended when the Pats grabbed a game winning TD out of Seahawk talons on the goal line as time expired.
But this game was a throwback to the terrible 80's.
During his Super Bowl half-time show last night Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny handed his Grammy award to a child - leading to a viral claim on X the recipient was a boy who’d been detained by US immigration agents last month.
The post - which has been seen 10 million times - said it was Liam Ramos, a five-year-old who was held along with his father by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota.
However, the boy was later revealed to be a child actor called Lincoln Fox. A video, posted to his Instagram account, showed the Grammy award moment being broadcast on a big screen inside the stadium.
The NFL’s choice to use Bad Bunny for the half-time show generated widespread complaints from supporters of US President Donald Trump - particularly after he called for “ICE out” in a victory speech at the Grammy Awards.
Trump, who did not attend this year's Super Bowl, called Bad Bunny's set "absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!" on his social media platform Truth Social.
And I agree.
^^As anticipated^^
The Patriots offense was stopped by the NFL's best defense. It is unlikely any offense could have done anything.
The Patriots defense was awesome until somewhere in 3'rd quarter when the Seahawks simply over powered them.
The two rookies on the left side of the Patriots offense certainly was part of the reason for the Patriots dismal attack.
I just wish the score would have ended up a closer 12-7. There's always next year for the Patriots.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion, Tom. However, the stats are in and Bad Bunny's Super Bowl half-time show had the LARGEST AUDIENCE in Super Bowl history -- 135.4 million viewers. Bad Bunny's performance was wildly popular because it was sooooo good! Sorry you didn't like it, but neither did the convicted felon and sexual assaulter who currently occupies the Oval Office.
My thoughts as well, Les -- there's always next year!
PS. I thought this post was amusing in response to everyone who complained about Bad Bunny being the entertainment for the all-American Super Bowl:
"Bad Bunny is more American than First Lady Melania, since he's 4th generation American."
I don't believe in anyone who is "more American" than someone else. If you've been naturalized, you're an American, even if the current administration doesn't believe so.
That's NOT what a majority of Americans thought. Only the unhappy, mean-spirited MAGAs, who are a distinct minority in this country and whose opinions match those of a convicted felon and adjudicated sexual assaulter who partied for decades with child sex traffickers and child rapists, and who is protective of Ghislaine Maxwell, a sex trafficker and rapist who was transferred to a cushy "club fed" where she gets massages, special meals, and a puppy dog. Trump pampers pedophiles.
It's not news to any of us to read your post, which is in line with the White House criminal's opinion.
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