Bad Bunny: Why MAGA is incensed

Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny will perform at the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, “and the MAGA movement is melting down over it,” said Sara Pequeño in USA Today. The NFL announced that the headliner of the halftime extravaganza viewed by more than 125 million people would be the Grammy-winning, wildly popular artist (real name: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio), who sings almost exclusively in Spanish, celebrates Latinos in his lyrics—and has been highly critical of President Trump and his immigrant crackdown. The league’s choice of Bad Bunny triggered fury from Republicans, with far-right podcaster Megyn Kelly calling it “a middle finger to MAGA and conservatives in this country.” Since it “can’t cancel his performance outright,” said Lindsey Granger in The Hill, MAGA hopes to ruin it. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threatened that ICE agents will be “all over the event,” looking for undocumented immigrants among fans and Bad Bunny’s crew to arrest and deport.

Bad Bunny will likely use this high-profile platform “to go after Trump,” said Adrian Carrasquillo in The Bulwark. He’s an unapologetic advocate of Puerto Rican independence and has been highly critical of ICE, toxic masculinity, and colonialism in his lyrics and interviews. On a Saturday Night Live appearance last week, the singer reiterated his desire to sing only in Spanish, itself a form of resistance, telling his audience with a coy smile, “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.” The NFL’s choice of Bad Bunny is unavoidably “a political act,” said The Miami Herald in an editorial. Like it or not, “sports and politics are now intertwined.”

The league is also making a calculated business decision, said Molly Jong-Fast in The New York Times. Its owners are hardly “a bunch of woke libs”—they’re billionaires who donate mostly to Republicans. But the NFL covets both more Latino and more young fans, and celebrities who stand up to Trump’s unpopular policies bring in big audiences. South Park has earned its best ratings in years with scathing Trump parodies, while last year’s Super Bowl halftime show, featuring a defiantly political performance by hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar, drew 133.5 million viewers—breaking the record set by Michael Jackson in 1993. Contrary to what MAGA’s incensed reactionaries think, “Woke is good for business.”