The Super Bowl halftime show used to be about pyrotechnics, wardrobe malfunctions, and the occasional left shark dancing off-beat. Now it’s a referendum on whether America can tolerate hearing a language other than English for more than three minutes. Welcome to 2026, where Bad Bunny will headline the official NFL halftime show—and Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk’s traveling youth grift disguised as patriotism, has announced an “All American Halftime Show” that promises “faith, family, freedom,” and, judging by their categories, a whole lot of white noise.
On October 9, 2025, Variety confirmed the absurd. TPUSA will counter-program the most-watched broadcast event on Earth with their own special, airing under the stars and stripes, offering fan-voted categories like “Pop,” “Worship,” “Americana,” and the pièce de résistance: “Anything in English.” Translation: if you don’t want to hear Bad Bunny sing in Spanish—despite the fact that he is a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico, has three Grammys, and sells more tickets than anyone on the planet—here’s a place for you to hide, clutch your Lee Greenwood CD, and convince yourself the 1950s are coming back.
Bad Bunny’s Real Stage vs. TPUSA’s Imaginary One
The official halftime show has Roc Nation. Jay-Z, Jesse Collins, Hamish Hamilton. Apple Music. NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NFL+. Over 100 million guaranteed viewers. Billions more on replay. The biggest corporate sponsors in the world lining up to plaster their logos next to an artist whose tours gross nine figures. Bad Bunny will step onto Levi’s Stadium’s stage in Santa Clara on February 8, 2026, and deliver a global performance America will argue about for weeks.
Turning Point’s show? Right now, it’s a press release, a badly designed website, and a slogan that might as well say, “We’re scared of reggaeton.” There’s no lineup. No confirmed venue. No sponsors brave enough to risk being Bud Light 2.0. Just Charlie Kirk standing on a digital soapbox and announcing that if you love America, you’ll watch his halftime stream instead of the actual halftime show.
Spoiler: nobody will.
The Racism Wrapped in Red, White, and Blue
It’s not subtle. “Anything in English” is not a genre. It’s not even a thought. It’s a panic button, a cultural safe space for people whose brains short-circuit when they hear lyrics they don’t understand. Spanish isn’t foreign here—it’s the second-most spoken language in the country. But TPUSA has managed to turn “English only” into a rallying cry, as though Bad Bunny’s performance is a national security threat and not, you know, a concert.
Let’s put this in perspective. Puerto Ricans are citizens. Bad Bunny has three Grammys. His last tour broke records worldwide. He has more crossover appeal than any artist in the past decade. Meanwhile, Charlie Kirk’s crew thinks America’s answer to that should be a category called “Worship” and a possible Lee Greenwood cameo. That isn’t counter-programming. That’s karaoke night at a gas station Applebee’s.
The History of Right-Wing Counter-Programming: Always Loud, Never Good
This isn’t TPUSA’s first attempt at playing culture war producer. They’ve staged alternate “State of the Union” streams before—usually involving an angry man in a flag tie yelling into a webcam while pretending to own the libs. They’ve held “faith and family festivals” that are just county fairs without the fun. They’ve done rallies that look like Kid Rock cover bands auditioning for a Walmart parking lot gig.
The formula is always the same: take a popular event, scream that it’s too liberal, then stage your own knockoff. It trends for a few hours in conservative corners of social media, then fizzles when people realize there’s no actual entertainment, just slogans.
Now they want to try it against the Super Bowl. Which is like opening a lemonade stand next to Disneyland and insisting you’re the real attraction.
Why Their Halftime Will Suck
Let’s be brutally clear: Turning Point USA’s “All American Halftime Show” is destined to be bad. Not because of their politics (though that’s a big part), but because producing a halftime show is hard. The NFL’s production has hundreds of people working for months on staging, lighting, choreography, rights clearance, broadcast logistics, and corporate partnerships. TPUSA has… a graphic that says “faith, family, freedom” and a Twitter account.
Booking A-list talent? Good luck. No one with career ambitions is signing up for “the English-only halftime show” without tanking their reputation. Sponsors? After watching Disney and Bud Light sagas implode, brands will avoid this like it’s radioactive. Distribution? Unless Fox News wants to air a second-rate pep rally at halftime, TPUSA’s stream will be stuck begging for clicks on YouTube while 100 million people watch Bad Bunny command the real stage.
And the fans? They’ll get some combination of Kid Rock, Jason Aldean, and a fog machine borrowed from a high school theater department. Maybe a Lee Greenwood hologram if the budget allows. That’s not a show. That’s a Facebook group reunion.
The Stakes: Ad Markets vs. Echo Chambers
Here’s what actually matters: money. The Super Bowl halftime show isn’t just about music. It’s about ads, sponsorships, and cultural dominance. Splitting the audience even slightly could fracture ad buys and spook sponsors. That’s TPUSA’s real play: create enough noise that corporations fear being seen as “un-American” if they align with Bad Bunny.
But history says otherwise. Disney is fine. Bud Light is fine. The NFL is more than fine. The ratings gravity of the Super Bowl will swallow any boycott. Culture war tantrums come and go, but 30-second ads at halftime still cost millions because everyone watches anyway. TPUSA’s show won’t fracture the market—it’ll siphon off a handful of diehards who can’t handle Spanish lyrics and give them a place to cosplay patriotism for 15 minutes.
Between Now and February: What to Watch
- TPUSA’s Lineup: Who they convince to perform will tell you everything. If it’s Kid Rock and Jason Aldean, we already know this is dead on arrival.
- Sponsors’ Nerves: Which corporation wants to risk the stink of “Anything in English”? Expect local car dealerships, not Pepsi.
- The NFL’s Flex: Expect Telemundo integrations, Bay Area community programming, and more Spanish-language content as a middle finger to critics.
- Security Theater: ICE chatter already made headlines. If DHS gets dragged back into the discourse, the politics will get louder.
- The Ratings Black Hole: When February 8 arrives, the NFL’s 100+ million audience will remind us that culture war knockoffs can’t outshine cultural gravity.
Closing Section: The JV Halftime Show
The real joke isn’t that TPUSA is staging a counter-program. It’s that they think anyone outside their echo chamber cares. The NFL booked a global superstar whose art transcends borders. TPUSA booked a concept. One will be remembered as spectacle. The other will be remembered, if at all, as a racist shrug disguised as patriotism.
When February comes, Americans will see two halftime shows. One dazzling, global, and unifying. The other a shaky livestream of Charlie Kirk’s idea of “real America”: English-only karaoke with a cross and a flag.
And that’s the true comedy. Because in trying to prove they own the culture, Turning Point will once again prove they don’t even own a clue.