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Seattle beats New England, 29–13. Bad Bunny headlines in Spanish. Kid Rock headlines a parallel stream. Pro-ICE messages glow outside the stadium. For the first time, America didn’t just disagree on the game; we watched two different broadcasts.
3 Narratives News | February 10, 2026
At some point during halftime, America did the thing it does now: it split its signal.
On one screen, the field transformed into a kinetic Puerto Rican street party, a Spanish-language spectacle beamed from Santa Clara to the world. On a second screen, a streaming service is available on phones and laptops across the country. Turning Point USA broadcast a counter-reality: an “All-American” show headlined by Kid Rock, marketed as a safe harbor for the alienated.
Meanwhile, outside the stadium’s glowing perimeter, pro-ICE billboards loomed over Bay Area highways. Online, a ghost story spread about a pro-ICE commercial that may or may not have aired, haunting the discourse like a rumor of war.
Callout: Super Bowl LX wasn’t just a game. It was a national Rorschach test with two correct answers.
Context: The Verifiable Reality
Before we analyze the narratives, here is the baseline reality:
- The Score: The Seattle Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots 29–13 at Levi’s Stadium. (ESPN)
- The Main Stage: Bad Bunny headlined the official halftime show. It was largely in Spanish, centering Puerto Rican culture. (EW)
- The Counter-Stage: Turning Point USA streamed a rival “All-American Halftime Show” featuring Kid Rock, drawing millions of concurrent views. (Decider)
- The Immigration Angle: Pro-ICE billboards appeared in the Bay Area. Social media claimed a pro-ICE TV ad aired; newsrooms have not independently verified this. The NFL officially stated no enforcement operations were tied to the game. (Houston Chronicle)
That would have been enough to fuel a week of cable news. Then President Trump entered the chat.
First, a cheerful morning greeting on Truth Social:
“Enjoy the Super Bowl, America! Our Country is stronger, bigger, and better than ever before!”
Then, the evening pivot. After Bad Bunny’s set, the tone shifted from paternal to punitive. Trump called the performance “absolutely terrible,” a
“slap in the face”
to the nation. (ABC News)
That arc of celebration turned into condemnation was the story of the night. The President narrated the Super Bowl as a choice: it is either national pride or national insult, depending entirely on which channel you are watching.
Narrative 1 (Side A): The Case for “Standards”
The Core Argument: The Super Bowl is the last campfire. If you extinguish the culture there, you extinguish it everywhere.
To this worldview, a halftime show performed mostly in Spanish isn’t “diversity.” It is displacement. Not because Spanish is unwelcome, but because the choice of the Super Bowl stage feels like a declaration: the “traditional” viewer, the one who buys the tickets and drinks the beer, is no longer the target audience. Side A didn’t hear music; they heard a notice of obsolescence.
Trump’s reaction crystallized this anxiety. His attack on the show wasn’t just music criticism; it was a defense of “standards” as a kind of cultural border.
“[It] doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence.”— President Donald Trump
To Side A, the phrase “slap in the face” is not hyperbole. It names a long-building suspicion that national institutions now curate culture against the people who once made those institutions profitable. That suspicion is repeated and amplified by conservative media figures who frame the halftime decision as a breach of trust.
“They’ve spit in the face of legacy Americans.”— Benny Johnson
In this telling, “standards” is also about a shared civic language. Not a hatred of other languages, but a belief that the one night the country gathers should lean into the common denominator, not depart from it.
“English is the language we all speak.”— Libby Emmons
This explains the pro-ICE messaging. To Side A, borders aren’t policy; they are survival. The billboards weren’t “intimidation”; they were a reminder of law and order in a sanctuary-state setting, timed to the week America’s attention is most concentrated.
“They can’t win without defense. Neither can America.”— Billboard message in San Francisco
Supporters framed the billboard campaign as a salute to agents, not a threat to communities.
“Thank you, @ICEgov, for defending our country. #StandWithICE.”— American Sovereignty statement quoted by Fox News
And the Turning Point USA counter-broadcast? Side A treats it less as “a rival show” than as a lifeboat: proof that if the mainstream won’t serve them, they have the money and audience to build a broadcast of their own. It’s the parallel economy of attention, now fully operational: parallel platforms, parallel celebrities, parallel halftime.
“It’s just a love for our base and love for music, our country.”— Kid Rock
Even the White House leaned into the split-screen framing, signaling that the alternative halftime was not fringe entertainment, but a preferred national channel for the administration’s cultural allies.
“The president would much prefer a Kid Rock performance over Bad Bunny.”— White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt
For some elected conservatives, “standards” becomes an explicit regulatory demand: not simply criticism, but a call to police the cultural gate.
“American culture will not be mocked or corrupted without consequence.”— Rep. Andy Ogles
In Side A’s worldview, the moral is blunt: if the NFL can reprogram halftime, then the country can be reprogrammed. The only defense is building parallel institutions fast enough to keep up.
Narrative 2 (Side B): The Case for Reality
The Core Argument: The future doesn’t ask permission. It wins, and then it gets argued about.
To Side B, the backlash is the tell. America is already multilingual. America already dances to rhythms that didn’t originate in Nashville or Boston. So when Bad Bunny’s halftime set arrived as a Puerto Rican-centered, Spanish-forward spectacle, Side B didn’t see provocation. It saw a belated broadcast of what the country already looks and sounds like.
“We are a city of immigrants. Seeing @villastacoslosangeles on the Super Bowl stage was a proud moment for our city.”— Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass
Side B also insists the performance wasn’t “anti-American.” It was explicitly pro-belonging. It spoke in the grammar of aspiration, the kind of speech America has always claimed to love.
“I never, ever stopped believing in myself and you should also believe in yourself.”— Bad Bunny
And for Side B, the most devastating rebuttal to the “this isn’t America” critique came from the show itself. The broadcast closed on a message that Side B reads as the simplest possible definition of patriotism.
“The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”— On-screen message at the end of the halftime show
Bad Bunny’s defenders weren’t confined to one political tribe. They included cultural institutions, celebrities, and the league’s own leadership, all basically making the same point: this is what global stardom looks like now.
“Listen, Bad Bunny is… one of the great artists in the world and that’s one of the reasons we chose him.”— NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell
“America, the beautiful. THANK YOU, BAD BUNNY.”— California Gov. Gavin Newsom,
“Thank you Benito for inviting me… I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”— Lady Gaga
Then came the parallel broadcast. Side B views the “All-American” counter-show not as patriotism, but as retreat: a curated safe space built on the premise that the official stage has become foreign, hostile, “not for us.” The reaction from artists who aren’t known as partisan mascots hit Side B like a clean punch.
“Well. That made me feel more proudly American than anything Kid Rock has ever done.”— Kacey Musgraves
Other musicians framed Bad Bunny’s set as intentionally inclusive, not a stunt.
Rissi Palmer called the show “beautiful,” “intentional” and “inclusive.”— Rissi Palmer
Even the late-night defense, in Side B’s telling, sounded less like comedy and more like a sociology lecture delivered with a punchline: two Americas watching the same footage and seeing different countries.
“Half of us saw a heartwarming story of immigrants… work hard… raise families, sing, dance.”— Jimmy Kimmel
And the game itself? Side B sees poetry in the scoreline. Seattle, the West Coast franchise from a region synonymous with tech and demographic churn, beating “the Patriots” on the biggest night of the year. If Side B is being honest, it doesn’t even need metaphor. It’s enough that the old name lost and the new reality won.
“Defense won this championship.”— AP game lede
In Side B’s worldview, the moral is simple: you can launch a parallel stream, you can declare the center illegitimate, you can call it “All-American.” But you can’t stop the country from becoming what it already is.
The People Who Don’t Get a Halftime Show
While the country fought over symbols, the people most affected by them were busy working the concession stands, reception, construction, or maybe dedicating every Sunday to the upbringing of their Children. The economy has made it very difficult for a person to survive on minimum wage. My barber, an immigrant from Kurdistan in Iraq, the most talented barber I have ever met, works full-time as a barber and part-time in security because he can’t afford to live in this city, and ironically, if he charged more, I wouldn’t be able to afford him.
Consider the immigrant families in the Bay Area. They didn’t care about the “discourse” around the pro-ICE billboards; they cared about the logistics of survival. Do we take the train? Is it safe to go downtown? Even after the NFL issued denials about enforcement raids, fear is sticky. It changes behavior. It empties seats.
And consider the silent economy of outrage. The Super Bowl has become a parasitic host. Advocacy groups, political campaigns, and media empires now attach themselves to the event like barnacles, trying to siphon off a fraction of the attention for their own fundraising. The economy is harsh to Hispanics and non-Hispanics alike.
The Reality Check: The “Split-Screen” is profitable. The outrage is monetized. The polarization has a business model.
Super Bowl LX didn’t break America. It just finally admitted that we are divorced, living in different houses, watching different TVs, and cheering for different versions of the same country.
Key Takeaways
- The Result: Seattle 29, New England 13. (ESPN)
- The Split: Two simultaneous halftime shows—one official (Bad Bunny), one insurgent (Kid Rock/Turning Point USA).
- The President: Trump pivoted from “Enjoy the game” to “National disgrace” in under four hours.
- The Tension: Unverified rumors of ICE ads and very real pro-ICE billboards created an atmosphere of anxiety on the ground.
