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The Super Bowl Halftime Show Was A Humiliation Ritual
The Federalist ^ | 9 Feb, 2025 | Brianna Lyman

Posted on 02/09/2026 7:42:39 AM PST by MtnClimber

Americans were forced to sit through one of their biggest cultural events of the year in a language that is not theirs, surrounded by symbols of other, foreign places.

The Super Bowl is supposed to be one of the cultural cornerstones in American life that still belongs to Americans. There are only a handful of days each year when most of the country pauses and gathers around the same screen to participate in something recognizably ours. It’s a shared experience — rooted in common language and culture and tradition. Which is why the Super Bowl half time show this year was a clear display of pure contempt for America.

Football is not a global sport that just ended up in the United States. It was created right here at home in the 1880s by Walter Camp. It was a sport created by Americans, for Americans. The NFL remains overwhelmingly domestic both in its players and its fanbase. In other words, football isn’t some international pastime. It’s one of the last mass cultural institutions that is distinctly American.

Yet, this year’s halftime performance by Puerto Rican singer “Bad Bunny” was conducted almost entirely in Spanish. His songs celebrated Puerto Rican — not American — culture. At the end of his performance, he exited the stage followed by one American flag and several foreign flags, holding a football that read “We are all America” while a giant screen read “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” And, given his recent “F[---] ICE” comments at the Grammys, it’s clear the message of his performance was that defense of sovereignty and national culture and rejection of its replacement would be framed as hatred.

Americans were forced to sit through one of their biggest cultural events of the year in a language that is not theirs, surrounded by symbols of other, foreign places. The audience was not invited into a shared civic experience. Instead, they were required to bear witness to the replacement of their own culture.

This wasn’t accidental, either. While speaking in October, Bad Bunny, who has only Spanish-language songs, addressed Americans directly: “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.” The burden wasn’t on the performer to meet or assimilate to the audience, but rather on the audience — Americans — to adapt to a foreign language or be left behind during their own cultural event.

That same message was delivered on the stage on Sunday.

And this isn’t merely my own interpretation of the event. The Miami Herald’s Amanda Rose praised the show for transforming the field into a “Puerto Rican sugarcane field where aspects of Puerto Rican life were around every corner” and concluding that “the halftime show was a sweeping celebration of Puerto Rican culture.” That description matters because it confirms that the intent of the performance was to replace a uniquely American culture with a foreign one.

And that’s where the humiliation comes in.

Across the country, Americans are being guilted out of their God-given right to sovereignty. They’re told by activists, celebrities, athletes, Democrats, and the propaganda press that borders are illegitimate. That the enforcement of longstanding, duly enacted federal immigration law is racist and xenophobic and anti-American. Foreigners wave the flags of countries they refuse to return to in our streets while demanding the right to stay. Activist judges block deportations and openly undermine federal authority on behalf of illegal aliens.

And all of this was legitimized on the stage on Sunday.

A foreign language replaced our national language, English. Foreign flags overshadowed the American one. Foreign culture was elevated during a traditional American experience. At the same time Americans are being told they have no right to enforce their own laws and to defend their sovereignty, they were forced to sit and watch the symbolic replacement of their country and culture.

And that’s humiliating.


TOPICS: Society; Sports
KEYWORDS: 00dukeyworkdtroll; 143millionbadbunny; 143millionenemies; 5millionkidrock; badbunnsucks; badbunny; badbunnysetrecords; buttbunny; culture; dukeywordtroll; fraggots; halftimeshow; ithoughtwezottrolls; ithoughtwokebroke; itsatrollonfr; itwasfine; itwasfineforfags; keywordtroll; kidrockbetterthanyou; kidrocklipsynch; leftism; nationalfaggotleague; nevertrumpkywrdtroll; nflfansarefags; prancingfag; superbowl; traitorswatchnfl
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To: DariusBane

If Puerto Rico wants to join the US, just make it the sixth borough of NYC.


121 posted on 02/09/2026 9:28:30 AM PST by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: cgbg
If they wanted to celebrate Puerto Rican culture they would have had a power outage.

Hands down winner right there.

122 posted on 02/09/2026 9:29:33 AM PST by RckyRaCoCo (there are demons out there, and they look like people)
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To: MtnClimber

It was just a football game.


123 posted on 02/09/2026 9:31:08 AM PST by right way right (“May we remain sober over mere men, for God really is our only true hope.)
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To: MtnClimber

I have not watched the National Felons League for a long time and their halftime shows have been horrible for a long time.
I remember watching halftime shows, oscars, emmy’s, late night TV,and the like when they were actually entertaining.


124 posted on 02/09/2026 9:31:43 AM PST by wbslws
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To: MtnClimber

34 years of Super Bowl halftimes as a reaction to an adult comedy sketch show taking viewers away from the game has resulted in this.

There is a consequence to bad decisions years ago. This is it.

If it was pre-1992, we would have had a Semiquincentennial themed Halftime Show with troops, American legends, and a celebration of the 250 years, wars, and military might. But after a winter carnival theme was destroyed by adult comedy shows . . .


125 posted on 02/09/2026 9:34:35 AM PST by WhiteHatBobby0701
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To: MtnClimber

Since Khomeini may be out of a job soon, why not book him for next year’s anti-American halftime show. He could open by singing the Iranian anthem, right after the black one, Asian one, Hispanic one, Croatian one, Turk one...


126 posted on 02/09/2026 9:36:35 AM PST by DPMD (u)
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To: rktman

Just on Youtube there were 6+ million “connections” at the same time at the peak. Many are expected to be from Superbowl parties where there were many viewers from a single connection. I have heard estimates that there could have been 40 million viewers across all of the platforms that carried the TPUSA event. That means potentially 40 million not watching the NFL halftime (and the commercials).


127 posted on 02/09/2026 9:37:13 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: dfwgator

But if the world is America , why America? I heard its a fascist, racist, capitalist shithole…. Doesnt sound like a place these folks would want to be.


128 posted on 02/09/2026 9:39:32 AM PST by MrRelevant
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To: MrRelevant

I heard its a fascist, racist, capitalist shithole


They think it’s only a temporary condition, that goes away when us old farts die off.


129 posted on 02/09/2026 9:40:11 AM PST by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: MtnClimber

I watched the Turning Point halftime show! Problem solved!!


130 posted on 02/09/2026 9:40:40 AM PST by bantam
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To: MrRelevant

Doesnt sound like a place these folks would want to be.


Remember the answer to the question, “Why do you rob banks?”

Same answer.


131 posted on 02/09/2026 9:41:11 AM PST by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: MtnClimber
The Super Bowl is supposed to be one of the cultural cornerstones ...

Hold it right there.

Only in the dreams of corrupt NFL corporate hype.

A "tradition" we'd be better without.

The NFL was a form of corruption from day one.
The only reason it is profitable is gambling, even if they don't directly get gambling revenue.
We'd all be better off if more people stopped caring about it.

132 posted on 02/09/2026 9:42:51 AM PST by Salman (Trump is good, but we need Pinochet. )
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To: MtnClimber

Last lines of America from West Side Story.

B: I think I go back to San Juan
G: I know a boat you can get on
B: Everyone there will give big cheer
G: Everyone there will have moved here


133 posted on 02/09/2026 9:46:16 AM PST by Biblebelter
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To: MtnClimber
Americans were forced...

for the record i was not forced, and did not bother to watch the superbowl or the dumb bunny halftime show. dont even care
134 posted on 02/09/2026 9:46:58 AM PST by wafflehouse ("there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon" -Alice's Restaurant Massacree)
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To: MtnClimber
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”

—Theodore Dalrymple, “Our Culture, What’s Left Of It” (HT: Bob Suden)
135 posted on 02/09/2026 9:47:19 AM PST by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: dfwgator

Shocked!

Would have bet the ranch his Twitter handle would have been @sonofamailman.


136 posted on 02/09/2026 9:49:28 AM PST by Biblebelter
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To: Biblebelter

I see that post and my thought is, “That guy didn’t watch it.”


137 posted on 02/09/2026 9:52:19 AM PST by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: Jan_Sobieski
When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves,

Like, for example, referring to a dude with his dick cut off as "she" ... or pretending that two perverted wymyn who went through some weird ceremony are "married" ... or "thinking" that a 110lb girl can easily defeat several large combat-trained men in unarmed fighting.

138 posted on 02/09/2026 10:05:11 AM PST by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: dfwgator; Getready

139 posted on 02/09/2026 10:10:24 AM PST by rlmorel (Factio Communistica Sinensis Delenda Est)
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To: NorthMountain

Exactly


140 posted on 02/09/2026 10:10:45 AM PST by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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