Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican artist and 6-time Grammy winner, delivered a landmark performance both culturally and symbolically. With record-breaking viewership of 128 million people, it became the most watched Super Bowl halftime show of all time. The show involved hundreds of dancers, a complex set featuring a Puerto Rican casita, and a live wedding.
For many, this show was a celebration of culture and diversity in America. But for others, the performance became a subject of controversy. From the very moment Bad Bunny was announced as the performer to even after the show had aired, critiques on the performance choice flooded social media platforms, especially on Truth Social and X. President Donald Trump took to his social media, labeling the show as “a slap in the face to our country,” criticizing the Spanish language and Latin culture, saying it did not correctly represent American values.
The intensity of these reactions, including the creation of a whole separate half-time performance showcasing country singer Kid Rock, illustrates how cultural symbols have increasingly served as proxies for broader political conflicts. Polarized media coverage and conservative alternative programming point to a stark divide in America’s current political landscape.
Culture can be understood as a key component in democratization, but can also be a major player in democratic backsliding. A stable democracy uses culture to make political attitudes less intense and divisive. When the people in charge begin to limit cultural expression, the press, speech, etc., the majority begin to lose their voices in democracy. If the spaces for discussion of shared experience are lost, the room for collective discourse shrinks. As a result, shared cultural dialogue is lost, and civil society is unaccounted for.
These differences are further pushed through current media networks. Outlets on both the right and the left amplified the cultural and political stakes of the musical performance. Conservative outlets emphasized critiques of the Bad Bunny show as un-American or morally inappropriate, while mainstream and liberal voices framed the backlash as symbolic of reactionary resistance to cultural diversity. These cross-party tensions have been, and continue to be, prevalent in every public event for the past 8-10 years. And there are no signs that there will be any sort of let-up soon.
Rather than creating a space to keep Americans in the loop on all things newsworthy, today’s media environment tends to amplify ideological differences and reward conflict in conversation. Understanding the democratic implications of this trend helps us see that polarization is not simply about disagreements over policy, but also about how citizens relate to and view each other in the public sphere. As debates over culture, identity, and representation continue to shape political life, the challenge for democracy will be finding spaces where diversity does not become divisiveness.
I completely agree with you that cultural events that once brought people together are now a window into the deeper divisions in society and their subsequent consequences of eroding democratic and social norms. Diversity, especially, has long been one of America’s proudest attributes. The fact that it is now being pitched as a weakness definitely shows that there is increasing weaponization of populist “us vs. them” rhetoric and fear-mongering by President Trump. I also believe, like you, that when people in charge begin to limit expression, this translates to the majority losing their voice. However, I would argue that this more potently affects minority voices and groups rather than majority ones. Due to their status as smaller groups, often with less social capital, they may be more prone to feeling like their group is under attack. This can then convince them to quiet their voices as they fear what the most outspoken and powerful people at the forefront of our political system may do as a result.