The NFL Used Bad Bunny to Divide America to Boost Ratings

Rinse, repeat

It was obvious, at least to me, why Bad Bunny, Lady Gaga, and Green Day were headlining the Super Bowl halftime show. Each of them had loud anti-ICE messages heading into the Super Bowl weekend. All of their clips went viral.

Lady Gaga and her usual blithering nonsense virtue signaled over in Japan.

Green Day, a band that is no longer relevant and is sponsored by Spotify, had its usual anti-Trump screeching that then went viral, telling ICE to quit their job and calling out Kristi Noem, JD Vance, etc. I don’t believe this clip is from the Super Bowl, though the title is clickbait.

And Bad Bunny made an appearance at the Grammys, with ICE OUT. He got a standing ovation for it.

And all of them were dropping into the middle of a flaming culture war between the Left and the Right that has almost become a hot war over illegal immigration. What did they think would happen? Well, they already knew. It would be a ratings bonanza with each side playing their part in our virtual Civil War, and play their part they did.

So what’s the play? Well, if these are the performers slated for the Super Bowl, they know exactly what the response will be. They needed the people who ordinarily wouldn’t watch the Super Bowl to turn out like they did when Taylor and Travis were the happy couple kissing after the Chiefs’ win. Bonanza ratings, like 150 million people tuned in. You think they’re going to get that number with only football fans watching?

So it was an easy way to generate a culture war and manifest a fake controversy to do two things: allow the Left to bloviate and virtue signal (mission accomplished) and force every social justice warrior and wine mom to watch the Super Bowl just to see Bad Bunny and then make their teary or angry TikTok video about HATE and RACISM and ICE!

This is their religion and their manifesto. We’ve arrived at the “No human is illegal” part of the lawn sign.

They had to make the Super Bowl must-see TV. So well done, NFL. Good job tearing this country apart yet again. Good job making us hate each other. Good job absolving the Left of their contemptible treatment of the Right, and all for what? Money, as usual.

What I won’t do is pretend, along with them, that any of it was real because it wasn’t. It was manufactured for a specific reaction by very smart ad executives who know the American people better than they know themselves.

Had the Republicans just ignored it, not gotten triggered, not made their own half-time show, it’s likely the public might have formed their own opinions about Bad Bunny’s song and dance, which, to be fair, wasn’t that bad. His performance has 16 million views on YouTube.

Everyone on the Left had to pretend to like it because, of course, they did. It was peak Woketopia. All the happy white people are absolved of their sins of wealth and privilege, elevating those they believe are beneath them. They get to gaslight and shame the Right for responding exactly the way they wanted them to.

Lady Gaga marinated in Latino culture as if to say see how much better we all are than you hateful racists?

Every story needs a villain, and this time around, all too often, it’s the Right. Culture isn’t made for them, and because they are cast as the evil force the Left goes to war with every day. When they try to make their own culture, they’re mocked for it. No one is happier than the ruling class that the Kennedy Center is closing.

The counter-programming at TPUSA did not do too badly, though it was also used as a weapon to mock the Right and embolden the Left: see those racists over there had to have their own show!

How nice would it have been, how conciliatory, if the NFL had extended an olive branch to their enemies and invited a MAGA-coded artist to perform, like I don’t know, Nicki Minaj? But that would not drive ratings. They needed unmissable TV, and they got it.

Why? Because, contrary to their own publicity, they are the ones who are defined by and consumed by hatred - of Trump, of American values, of those who want some of that back and feel it slipping away. It wasn’t love that drove the ratings. They tuned in to watch Bad Bunny because they hate Trump and the Right.

MAGA and the Conservatives have no cultural clout. Not yet anyway, maybe someday. But turn a football game into some kind of rallying cry for the Left, and you’ll get three times the audience.

That’s not quite the 150 million that watched for Taylor and Travis, but they got close because they found a way to attract that same audience demographic: virtue signaling white women, not to mention all of the activists body slamming ICE agents and bullying yoga studios.

The bloviating virtue signal machine was made for days like these. The Left is getting played as easily as the Right, but only one side comes out the winner here, and it isn’t the Right.

Even Piers Morgan got in on it. Not the most complex thinker, our Piers.

They hoped the Conservatives might say something about speaking English because that, to them, is the smoking gun that proves everything they’ve been saying for ten years, even though Barack Obama himself said all immigrants should have to speak English. It isn’t that big of a deal to expect us all to speak the same language. Well, not if you’re Lady Gaga, I guess.

As long as they can demonize the Right and call them racists, they can wake up the heroes. Or at least, they can keep pretending they are. In reality, they are the elitists, the ruling class who shut out half the country. The NFL did them a solid with yet more fantasy football.

If anyone thinks Bad Bunny’s performance was unifying or that it was all about “love,” they are lying, either to themselves or to us. It was designed to divide America to drive ratings. It is no more complicated than that.

Imagine what would happen if no one watched the Super Bowl, then think about what would happen if everyone did. The only way everyone will watch is if no one can look away.