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

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 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 Mart nez 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 million Americans like it s the summer sun swiftly melting them into the whiniest vapor imaginable When TPUSA posted about their halftime show there was a flurry of hyperbolic responses from MAGA followers hoping that hate alone would somehow produce an entertaining alternative to one of the preponderance popular artists in the world When TPUSA posted about their halftime show there was a flurry of hyperbolic responses from MAGA followers hoping that hate alone would somehow produce an entertaining alternative to one of the bulk popular artists in the world It was in other words the perfect illustration of what the kids mean when they accuse someone of posting cope But at least these MAGA posts were far funnier albeit unintentionally than anything Elon Musk has ever posted This will be more watched than the Super Bowl Halftime Show posted the Donald Trump superfan Matt Van Swol Calling it right now This tweet received likes which is likely larger than the number of people who will watch whatever tepid scheme TPUSA throws together In the end a wholesome family halftime show during football wrote Susie Pollick who presumably voted for a thrice-married adulterer for president The demonic evilness has to stop and be wholesome and make people smile and feel confident watching something On their website TPUSA appealed 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 released 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 billion times on Spotify Is it Creed requested The Conservative Alternative He was not alone User after user inquired for Creed a s era rock band who last had a song on the Billboard charts years ago Fun fact When Creed s first album came out Bad Bunny was only years old In perhaps the saddest post of the day a user named Saga mocked up a fantasy poster for the event that featured a murderers row of has-beens like Papa Roach Nickelback Staind and yep Creed Basically the same array of CDs you d find in the floorboards of the least dateable guy you knew in the s User Caesar declared that with Creed as their cultural saviors MAGA is prepared to take way of life BACK Creed has not yet established their role in restoring America to the pinnacle of greatness that was FM rock radio Related MAGA can t expand its base and Christian music tell us why As the Bulwark s Will Sommer stated on X particular cheeky progressive satirized this by mocking up a fake poster for TPUSA s halftime show which promised Kid Rock Ted Nugent and a Guest Appearance by Measles Not realizing they were the butt of the joke Trump voters went nuts sharing the flier At least one MAGA man complete with a profile picture of himself wearing sunglasses in the car was suspicious Not on a TPUSA acct he posted asking who the eff is measles A good question to ask Strength and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr Not everyone was begging for acts you d usually expect to headline a cruise ship advertised to people who graduated college when Bill Clinton was president Various people sought music that s even more unpopular Multiple users demanded worship music which is basically a blandly written verse and chorus about Jesus performed in an adult contemporary style that no one listens to outside of white evangelical circles Lots of folks just posted pictures of Charlie Kirk who wasn t a musician A multitude of people without having a clue who will perform declared they would watch this instead of the real halftime show Particular of them seemed confused thinking TPUSA had somehow canceled and replaced Bad Bunny with fill in acceptably white person at the Super Bowl House Speaker Mike Johnson R-La inadvertently captured the spirit of the moment when he was sought about Bad Bunny shortly after the Super Bowl announcement Johnson claimed Bad Bunny is not someone who appeals to a broader audience He instead recommended the -year-old Lee Greenwood who is known for God Bless the U S A a song issued a full decade before Bad Bunny was born The speaker lies about pretty much everything but even by his standards it was pathetic to pretend this is a factual reflection of current American trends in pop music Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics Sign up for her free newsletter Standing Room Only now also on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts All of this reflects what is a small ray of hope in our bleak political moment MAGA s relationship with pop lifestyle only has two forms Complete cluelessness and or resentment that the greater part people think their taste stinks This matters because it s been a truism on the far-right for decades now that capturing the custom 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 tradition 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 society Over the years untold amounts of money have been poured by right-wing donors and investors into remaking the way of life in MAGA s image in hopes that will turn American hearts toward authoritarianism and evangelical Christianity But they are throwing their money to the wind As I wrote lately for all the hype around Kirk s memorial the actual event didn t resonate beyond his existing fanbase Nearly all the performers hailed from the world of worship music there was nary a nod to what might resonate with people outside white evangelical subculture This reflects a reality that the mainstream media ignored in the wake of Kirk s murder Even though he was widely known on college campuses due to the ubiquity of his videos falsely promising to dunk on liberal college kids he wasn t well-liked Although of college students explained in a contemporary survey they had heard of Kirk a full declared they didn t agree with his views But it s not just with the youth that MAGA is failing to connect culturally Earlier this month The Guardian s Adam Gabbatt wrote about efforts by right-wing donors to capture the late-night comedy audience which tends towards the AARP demographic Hundreds of thousands of dollars were poured into five pilot episodes of The Talk Show With Eric Metaxas hosted by a far-right author who specializes in faux-history books marketed as Christmas gifts for MAGA grandfathers who will never read them The show featuring people who were famous decades ago like Carrot Top or Danny Bonaduce was so terrible that even people who thought there could be a area for Christian nationalist comedy gave up on financing it We need your help to stay independent Subscribe at present to encouragement Salon s progressive journalism An even bigger money sink may be the Daily Wire a media company founded in part by MAGA wunderkind Ben Shapiro As YouTube star Jos systematically documented a minimal months ago things are not going well at the company In its early days when it focused on serving a MAGA audience daily outrage bait and half-baked political commentary the Daily Wire made a good amount of money But its mistakes began when they started to yearn for a role in pop society a space their existing audience doesn t understand and often actively hates Efforts to make real Hollywood-style movies resulted in comically bad failures like Lady Ballers which supposedly made more money for the content creators who used it as grist for their mockery mill It s not written in stone that conservatives can t make art But MAGA couldn t be better designed to repel the creative urge The whole movement is based on a notion that difference is scary change is bad and everything that s happened since you were years old is a travesty Fearfulness and intellectual laziness are kryptonite to the imagination How can you think of something new when your ideological position is that everything new is bad Bad Bunny isn t just alienating to MAGA because he makes Spanish-language music Reggaeton is the perfect encapsulation of how real artists embrace difference drawing inspiration from diversity that exposes them to sounds visions and ideas they ve never experienced before It s a genre that emerged from people combining hip-hop dancehall reggae and all manner of Latin American genres like salsa and merengue It s what comes from learning from the past but striving for the future two modes of thought that MAGA rejects out of hand Instead they d rather beg for a halftime activity that sounds so boring that even the people clamoring for it now ostensibly won t watch it when it happens You can bet that greater part Americans meanwhile will be wiggling their hips to D kiti Read more about this topic Podcast bros criticize Trump and sports bros step in Pam Bondi is Trump s mean girl Pope Leo takes aim at MAGA s false gospel The post MAGA s fake Super Bowl halftime show reveals their real failures appeared first on Salon com