Last month, I travelled to Puerto Rico for the first time. We went to celebrate a wedding, and we were there for about a week… First in Old San Juan for a couple days, then for a day on the island Vieques, then spent the rest of the trip a a resort in Rincón where the wedding was held. Everything about the island was lovely: The weather… the scenery… the drinks… and ESPECIALLY the people. We arrived in San Juan right before the San Sebastián street festival (a festival in the middle of January that kind of unofficially marks the end of Christmas), and both of the parking garages we knew about were closed down for the festival. As we drove around looking for a place to park, I realized I had never before been in a place where my mastery of the English language was worth so little. Luckily, even though Spanish is the dominant language, it’s mostly bilingual and just about everyone speaks at least a LITTLE English… even if it’s slightly broken. Regardless, even after taking 3 years of Spanish classes, the least capable English speakers I encountered in Puerto Rico communicated WAY better than I could communicate in Spanish.

I was just such a cool place. Such a rich history—One that I knew embarrassingly little about. I saw where Ponce de León lived… Like THAT Ponce de León. The explorer/conquistador. I stood on forts that were 250 years older than the Declaration of Independence… Churches older than the USA. We kayaked in the dark of night on a magical, glowing bioluminescent bay. The people we met were the sort of people who—after just meeting you—were insisting that you MUST come back, and inviting you to stay with them at their house when you did. They emanated hospitality & kindness. It was just… Lovely.

By now, you’ve no doubt heard about the uproar & outrage so much of MAGA America had to the idea of a Spanish-speaking man performing at the Super Bowl. So Turning Point USA got together with TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network—the largest christian broadcasting network in the world) to give an alternative “All-American” halftime show featuring Kid Rock that was “celebrating Faith, Family, & Freedom,” I don’t want to spend a lot of time writing about it… It was embarrassingly bad. Kid Rock flailed all over the stage, seemingly forgetting the words to his own songs so that his lip-syncing was exaggeratedly UN-synced. You can watch an incredibly cringy clip here:

In case you were—for some reason—unable to catch the words by reading his lips, what he said there was as follows: “And this is for the questions that don’t have any answers, the midnight glancers and the topless dancers, the gander freaks, cars packed with speakers, the G’s with the 40’s and the chicks with beepers.” Kid Rock sang that. On TBN. Well, I guess technically, he didn’t sing it… He mouthed it. On TBN. Very poorly mouthed it. On TBN. He was “celebrating Faith, Family, & Freedom,” In that song, he goes on to celebrate “Southern Comfort, punctured veins, crackheads, methadone clinics, bastards at the IRS, crooked cops, shots of Jack, caps of meth, & hookers all trickin’ out in Hollywood.” On TBN… All on TBN.

As is often the case, the ones feeling the deepest sense of outrage are the ones most unburdened by the importance or even cursory knowledge of history. Puerto Rico was a possession of Spain for 400 years. It was acquired by the United States in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, and since 1917 its citizens are American citizens… Even though they can’t vote in American elections. They are federally taxed, without representation—Otherwise known as “taxation without representation.” They spoke Spanish in America more than 100 years before anyone was speaking English here. Bad Bunny (who I admit I knew VERY little about before this Super Bowl Streisand Effect) famously said, “English is not my first language. But it’s okay, it’s not America’s first language, either.” Rad. People were very angry about him singing in Spanish… in California (Spanish name)… in a stadium in Santa Clara (Spanish name)… near the Bay Area of San Francisco (Spanish name). How DARE he? It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad. What ISN’T sad is what was at the heart of Bad Bunny’s halftime performance. And as I talk about this, please be thinking about which part of this performance felt so “un-American” to the MAGA cultists…

He walked through the sugar cane fields whose sugar & rum turned Puerto Rico into such a rich port… past vendors selling piraguas and seeing scenes of daily life on the island he loves. He turned the field into a beautiful, bustling market. And then a block party. He gave one of his Grammys to a little Latino kid watching him on a television. An actual couple who had asked him to attend their wedding was married in real life and celebrated live on the most watched program in the world. He climbed onto power lines, highlighting PR’s continued struggles with power & infrastructure… Struggles, by the way, that are not helped by an orange moron tossing desperate people rolls of paper towel after a hurricane.

And he introduced himself in Spanish, using his full name. He said, “Mi nombre es Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, y si hoy estoy aquí en el Super Bowl 60, es porque nunca, nunca dejé de creer en mí. Tú también deberías de creer en ti. Vales más de lo que piensas. Confía en mí.” Which is translated in English as, “My name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, and if I’m here today at Super Bowl 60, it’s because I never, ever stopped believing in myself. You should also believe in yourself. You’re worth more than you think. Trust me.” These are words spoken by a 31 year old man who is right now the most popular artist on the planet… A young man who, ten years ago, was working as a bagger & cashier at an Econo supermarket in Puerto Rico. “Believe in yourself.” Sounds like some woke garbage to me…

The only English words he said were “God Bless America.” And then he had the audacity to suggest God might want to bless the countries in ALL the Americas… South America, Central America, and North America. He named all the countries while the people surrounding him danced & proudly carried the many different American flags. He held up a football that said, “Together, we are America.” Behind him, the words on the Jumbotron read, “The only thing stronger than hate is love.” This was a callback to his speech last week when he won a Grammy and said, “We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans. The hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love.” I don’t know about you, but this sounds like some more woke nonsense… the kind of garbage that makes me want to quickly change the channel to TBN so I can cleanse my offended eyes & ears with a scrawny middle-aged white dude screaming about topless dancers & doing meth. On TBN.

The president of the United States was ALSO very offended by Bad Bunny’s un-American call for unity, belief in yourself, and love over hate… calling the show a “slap in the face” to our country. Bad bunny finished with the words “Seguimos aquí,” which means “We’re still here.” Perhaps this is what he was so upset about—them still being here. He went on to say, “It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World.” I’m pretty sure there are PLENTY of people around the world who “understand a word this guy is saying,” donald. Perhaps—like tariffs, economics, science, history, religion, the Bible, government, running a successful casino, morality, compassion, or basic human decency—the problem might be with YOUR ability to understand things.

America is so divided. And the division has less to do with big government versus small government, or individual freedom, or taxes… I think the biggest dividing line right now is surrounding DEI. Not the boogieman catch-all acronym DEI that is used (much like the word “woke”) to demonize everything that scares white folks, while shifting the blame for their woes away from billionaires & oligarchs and onto Black, Brown, & immigrant neighbors… The words behind DEI: DIVERSITY, EQUITY, & INCLUSION. Part of America looks at the simple goodness of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, and they actually see something worth fighting against. Another part of America looks at Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion and the see something worth fighting FOR. Guess which group enjoyed yesterday’s Super Bowl Halftime show…

Remember Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? I love that movie. There’s more to it than just a great love song. When Kevin Costner’s “Robin Hood” brings Morgan Freeman’s Moorish “Azeem” back with him to England, a little girl touches his face, fascinated by his brown skin, and she asks him—through her little English accent—“Did God paint you?” Azeem explains his difference with three words: “Allah loves diversity.” And even as a kid, this line just struck me as so true. Like… JUST LOOK AROUND! Of COURSE God loves diversity. Now there seem to be so many angry people—in comment sections and school boards and board rooms—who see a scene like that and think “INDOCTRINATION!!” Some people see that scene and tear up over the simple truth of goodness of diversity in the world… Others see it and they’re angry about them using the word “Allah.” Just like some see Bad Bunny’s love letter to Puerto Rico and tear up at the beauty of a man honoring a beloved culture and language and people… Others see a reason to turn the channel to a Kid Rock concert. On TBN. Some people see this halftime show as “un-American.” Others, like me, see it as one of the most beautifully American things I have ever seen.

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