Nobody thinks the N.F.L. is run by a bunch of woke libs. Or for that matter, that most N.F.L. fans fit that description. In fact, the team owners, many of whom trend MAGA oligarch, donated $23 million to Republicans in the 2024 election, versus $2.5 million to Democrats. And of course there’s a reason Colin Kaepernick’s career was so resolutely benched. Many woke libs won’t even let their kids play football, not wanting to risk that their meritocratic brains might get concussed.
But the N.F.L. still picked the anti-ICE pop star Bad Bunny to headline the Super Bowl halftime show in February, where he will presumably sing in Spanish at the gladiatorial altar of the American Empire.
Lest you think Bad Bunny is some kind of fake lib, he is not. This summer, he set up residency not in the usual jackpot location of Las Vegas but in Puerto Rico, where he was born, calling the concert series “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí” (“I Don’t Want to Leave Here”). Bad Bunny didn’t include the United States mainland in his coming tour, in part because he was worried ICE agents might go after his fans at the shows.
The announcement of the Bad Bunny halftime show has sent the MAGA gang around the bend. Corey Lewandowski, who has been advising the Department of Homeland Security, has said ICE will be on hand at the Super Bowl: “We will find you, we will apprehend you, we will put you in a detention facility and we will deport you.” Go team!
The reason the N.F.L. picked Bad Bunny is the same reason that Jimmy Kimmel’s first show after his suspension had huge viewership, that “South Park” is having its best ratings in years and that Target’s sales are off since it dropped its D.E.I. efforts. Let’s face it: Woke is good for business.
There’s a lesson here for the Democrats trying to sell themselves — and this government shutdown — to an America skeptical of the party’s ability to move the ball down the field, much less win the big game.
Republicans control Congress and early polling shows that the public blames them for the shutdown 47 percent to 30 percent, at least for now. The Democrats are betting that the pain of the shutdown — and President Trump using it as an excuse to fire more government employees and share trolly deepfakes — is worth the upside, which is that they are calling attention to soon-to-spiral health care costs that the Republicans have refused to do anything about. But mostly they are just trying to do … something, besides just sitting glumly on the sidelines. It’s a gesture of defiance.
But is it defiant enough? The problem is that the Democrats are depending on Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, two reasonable-seeming, compromise-oriented low-charisma legislators, as their leaders. And they are arguing against Mr. Trump’s wildly unpopular Big Beautiful Bill. Now is not the time for that.
Mr. Schumer knew he had to support a shutdown because if he caved again as he did in March, when he tried to play ball with the Republicans and got nothing in return, it would likely be the end of his political career. In March, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke for many on the left when she said that there was a “deep sense of outrage and betrayal” over Mr. Schumer’s attempt at being a sensible centrist. Now it’s seven months later, and New Schumer wants to do … something.
“Hakeem and I sent a letter,” Schumer told MSNBC — a letter! — before adding that “we demanded, actually.” The less that is said about Mr. Jeffries’s “Gen Z is in the House” livestream the better.
Instead, the Democrats might want to ask themselves: What would Bad Bunny do?
“Democratic leaders seem afraid of their most effective messengers — imagine how strong we’d be as a party if we lifted up our most popular communicators,” Rebecca Katz, a former Harry Reid staffer turned Zohran Mamdani adviser, texted me. “The good news for Democrats is they have many effective communicators with big platforms who can help.”
Just look at the three-minute explainer on the shutdown from Senator Bernie Sanders and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. It was, to quote Nate Silver, “approximately 142 times better (highly scientific estimate) than Ds are getting from leadership.”
Back in 2002, Bill Clinton gave this advice to his party on how to appeal to voters: “When people feel uncertain, they’d rather have someone strong and wrong than weak and right.” This is not an argument for Democrats to be wrong; it’s an argument for them to stop worrying so much that they might be.
It’s also an argument for them to have certitude about the things they have chosen to believe in.
Politics these days is not about legislative skill. There isn’t much legislating going on anyway. Congressional Republicans have given up their power — over the purse, over the health and safety of Americans, over the ability to wage war — and their self-respect in order to try to stay on Mr. Trump’s good side.
Most Americans don’t like what the Republicans are doing, and they certainly don’t like how they are doing it. But the Republicans are still getting away with it. They want to reshape the country, roll back a hundred years of progress and ask for permission later — or never.
The Democrats need to empower messengers that the establishment is scared of, people who don’t delight megadonors. Democrats need to stake their claims on a set of strong beliefs, and see if Americans will follow. They need to stop being lawyerly and timid.
It’s a good sign that MAGA is freaking out about Bad Bunny. “So you heard about this guy, Da Bunny? Is that his name? Bad Bunny? Bad, Bad Bunny!” Newsmax’s Greg Kelly fulminated. “Now we have Da Bunny, who hates America, hates President Trump, hates ICE, hates the English language! He’s just a terrible person.” He’s also one of the biggest pop stars in the world.
Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show last February, which was freighted in all manner of bracing and defiant political symbolism, was the most-watched performance in history, drawing 133.5 million viewers. It broke the record held by Michael Jackson’s 1993 halftime performance.
Democrats need to listen for the roar of the crowd.
Molly Jong-Fast is the host of the “Fast Politics” podcast and the author of “How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir.”
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