The Puppy Bowl gets some competition
It had to happen: The MAGA Super Bowl halftime alternative.
It’s getting trickier to watch the Super Bowl. And your choices now constitute a political act.
The first alternative to the Super Bowl was the Puppy Bowl, a clever bit of counterprogramming nobody could object to. The Puppy Bowl debuted 20 years ago for people who weren’t into football or just wanted a break from the hyperbolic commercials. You watch rescue dogs cavorting on a fake gridiron for a few minutes and feel better about whatever is bugging you. At halftime, the Puppy Bowl mixes it up by benching the dogs and showcasing kittens.
Now we have another alternative halftime show courtesy of Turning Point USA, the conservative group founded by deceased activist Charlie Kirk. And anybody hosting a Super Bowl party next February 8 might need two giants TVs in two separate rooms, to keep fans from warring over different political messages each show is likely to feature.
Trumpy conservatives are aghast at the NFL’s choice of Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny as the 2026 halftime act, so they’re pulling a Puppy Bowl and coming up with some counterprogramming of their own. What’s wrong with Bad Bunny? Well, he sings mostly in Spanish, which is the wrong language. President Trump has designated English as the “official language of the United States,” and he’s making good on that by deporting a lot of people who speak other languages, thereby raising America’s English-to-non-English speaking ratio.
Bad Bunny exploded some MAGA heads when he hosted Saturday Night Live on October 4, and gave a tribute to Latinos in Spanish. Then he said, “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”
The reggaeton phenom, who’s an American citizen, also backed Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. He’s skipping the United States on his upcoming world tour because he’s worried Trump would send immigration agents to his concerts, looking for Bad Bunny fans to deport.
Trump and his fellow culture warriors welcome the battle. Trump said he never heard of Bad Bunny but nonetheless thought the NFL’s choice was “absolutely ridiculous.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said immigration agents will be “all over” the Super Bowl in San Francisco next February, proving Bunny right about his deportation concerns. One can imagine Trump going further by sending the National Guard to blast some air horns and drown out the Spanish.
Turning Point probably won’t have to worry about immigration agents at its “All American Halftime Show.” It hasn’t said yet who the performers will be, but it’s taking suggestions on its Web site, so it will probably end up as a right-wing people’s choice lineup. The usual suspects include Ted Nugent, Jason Aldean, Kid Rock, Kanye West and of course Lee Greenwood.
If you want to vote, your choices include “anything in English,” “country,” “hip hop” and “worship.” I chose English and worship. English, because I know it’s going to be in English and I want to be on the winning side, and worship because the idea of football fans tuning in for some halftime scripture really tickles me. Amen and pass the dip.
Here’s the full range of choices TPUSA is offering. Cast your own vote here.
The NFL obviously knew what it was doing when it chose Bad Bunny for its halftime spectacle. Recall that the NFL battled with Trump during his first term, after Colin Kaepernick and dozens of other players started kneeling during the national anthem. Trump milked the issue for months, calling on team owners to fire the kneelers and giving fans a new controversy to argue about. The NFL bumbled through the issue for a couple of years, until it became more active in the racial justice movement many players support.
The Turning Point halftime show might be lousy. It certainly won’t have the pizazz of an NFL production. And politicizing the Super Bowl will obviously divide Americans on yet another tradition that used to be a shared cultural experience.
But so what. If some football fans are more interested in treacly patriotic verse than in a global superstar, let them pump their fists one more time to “God Bless the USA.” An alternative halftime show is better than a call for a boycott, with all the implications of cancel culture. A lot of people think the Super Bowl halftime shows are duds anyway, since not everybody loves Kendrick Lamar or Maroon 5 or The Who. Country music is a huge genre that rarely shows up at the Super Bowl.
And for those who don’t want to make a statement by choosing one halftime show or the other, the Puppy Bowl offers a safe middle choice. It will probably get record ratings in 2026. Maybe have three TVs at your Super Bowl party.
Hey! I don't deserve it! Maybe everybody else does ..... 😎
Over the last three decades or so, we have become a decadent, apathetic, cynical, unserious society. We, as a whole, absolutely deserve what's coming our way down the road. It's so true that not having existence-at-stake competition dulls any entity... after the end of the cold war, the US started a slow descent in comity in its body politic, and here we are.