At this point, you have probably heard enough about the effect of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show on the president and his coalition. While there are plenty of details to debate, including the ludicrous allegation that the Grammy-winner’s performance was “pure smut,” I think it’s important to keep your eyes fixed on what’s really at stake.
Rightwingers don’t mind “indecent acts,” as their protection of “the Epstein class” should attest. What they mind is a global superstar, who originates from Puerto Rico and whose native language is Spanish, making affirmative claims about who belongs in America.
Bad Bunny’s halftime show was an extension of remarks he made two weekends ago after winning six Grammys.
“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” he said. “We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”
His argument in favor of kindness and common cause, and in defense of diversity and inclusion, was later immortalized on words written on a football — “Together, we are America” — and it lay beneath a spectacle seen by 135 million, according to the Daily News.
The strength of Bad Bunny’s argument was enhanced by the impotence of its counterpart. Turning Point USA, the hate group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, organized an alternate musical event. Emceed by Kid Rock, the show’s message was, more or less, America is for “us,” not “them.” According to the Daily News, just 6 million watched it.
That’s their beef.
Donald Trump and his rightwing allies will not believe their vision of America — essentially, a racially exclusive club — is unpopular.
They will never accept that America has fallen in love with a man who was born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, who was bagging groceries a decade ago before rising to Spotify’s top global artist, who welcomes everyone and whose life embodies the American Dream.
So they smear him, accusing him of involvement in a criminal conspiracy to somehow force Americans into loving him against their will. That’s the thinking behind a new complaint by US Congressman Andy Ogles. The Tennessee Republican described the Super Bowl halftime show as “pure smut” featuring “explicit displays of gay sexual acts, women gyrating provocatively, and Bad Bunny shamelessly grabbing his crotch while dry-humping the air.”
Ogles continued, saying Bad Bunny “openly glorified sodomy and countless other unspeakable depravities.” Ogles said “these flagrant, indecent acts” break federal law regulating television airwaves. He called for an investigation in a letter to the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees broadcast regulations.
But such allegations are decoys. Rightwingers do not care about “family values.” If they did, they would not tolerate the incarceration of babies. (The youngest person in the Dilley Detention Center in Texas is 2 months old, according to Univision.) Rightwingers do not care about higher-order things, only whether they can be used to accomplish their goals.
In this case, the goal is discrediting a global superstar who is popularizing a new and dangerous idea of belonging in America. You don’t need to pass a test. You don’t have to know the rules. You don’t even need the correct paperwork. If you’re here, you’re American.
Because “together, we are America.”
“Together, we are America” is new, as it casts immigration in the context of brotherhood, so the burden of government is finding ways of turning a fact of life into a fact of law.
It is dangerous, as it upends a decade of rightwing effort to move public understanding of immigration away from a matter of freedom and opportunity to a matter of crime and punishment. The burden is now entirely on individuals. They’re presumed guilty until proven innocent. “Together, we are America” has the potential of turning that around.
Bad Bunny’s ethic of belonging is dangerous for another reason. It comes as the logical conclusion to ten years of fear-mongering and hate speech is coming into view: families ripped apart, communities shredded, citizens murdered and concentration camps opening.
Even respectable white people, or “independent voters,” are recoiling (mostly because they are shocked to learn that an “immigration crackdown” includes them). Thanks to the horrors the country has witnessed over the last month, they are now open to alternatives, especially alternatives being advanced by the most popular performing artist on the planet.
Right now, the focus is on ICE and its crimes. That, however, is like the allegation that Bad Bunny’s show was “pure smut” — it limits politics to terms favorable to Trump. “Abolish ICE” should be part of a bigger picture so the meaning of belonging is radically redefined.
Immigrants are Americans. They might not speak the language. They might not know the rules. They might not have the right papers. But they are here. That makes them American.
The question is not if they are, but when it becomes official.
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