Michael Jochum on Bad Bunny and “the Great American Meltdown”

I didn’t know much about Bad Bunny until recently. I’m old, I’m tired, and the Grammys tend to feel like a corporate hostage situation. But credit where it’s due: the man is a gentleman, an artist with spine, and, most importantly, someone who understands that silence in the face of cruelty is complicity. His unapologetic stance against ICE’s lawless deportations and the casual erasure of due process matters. A lot.

So the fact that Bad Bunny has been chosen to perform the Super Bowl halftime show feels less like a booking decision and more like a cultural stress test. And judging by the early howling from the usual corners, the test is already breaking them.

If there’s any justice left in this country, poetic, karmic, divine, take your pick, I sincerely hope Bad Bunny struts onto that halftime stage in a full-length gown that sends conservative group chats into cardiac arrest. I hope he waves the Puerto Rican flag like it’s the Second Coming, refuses to utter a single damn word of English, not even a polite “hi,” and delivers fifteen minutes of pure, unbothered Spanish.

No apologies. No subtitles. Just rhythm, defiance, and cultural truth.

And I hope Fox News spontaneously combusts in real time.

Because nothing terrifies self-styled “patriots” more than a brown man who is wildly successful, beautifully androgynous, politically awake, and utterly uninterested in kissing the ring. The MAGA cult doesn’t hate him because of his music. They hate him because he exists on his own terms. Autonomy is the real threat. They worship “freedom” until someone else exercises it, whether that’s freedom of expression, freedom of religion, or the radical freedom to speak in a language they don’t control.

They’re already sharpening the knives. Spanish lyrics are suddenly “divisive.” Gender-fluid fashion is somehow a national emergency. And, as always, someone inevitably questions his legal status, as if Puerto Ricans haven’t been U.S. citizens for more than a century. Facts, of course, are optional accessories in the MAGA wardrobe.

Bad Bunny’s activism is what really rattles them. He’s been outspoken about ICE brutality, deportations without due process, and the casual cruelty inflicted on immigrant communities. He doesn’t wrap it in euphemisms or patriotic cosplay. He says what he means, and he means it. That kind of clarity is dangerous in a culture built on denial.

And yes, right on cue, Kristi Noem, the patron saint of cruelty and dead dogs, has reportedly floated the idea of an ICE “presence” at the Super Bowl. Because nothing says “land of the free” like threatening brown fans at a football game. Her translation of “law-abiding Americans” remains unchanged: white, obedient, and grateful for the boot.

Trump, meanwhile, is said to be “not weighing in,” which is MAGA-speak for sulking somewhere, hoarding ketchup packets, and counting how many times his name comes up. The man who spent years calling the NFL unpatriotic now gets to watch a Puerto Rican global icon command the world’s attention without asking his permission.

Karma is nothing if not efficient.

This was never about music. It’s about control, over culture, bodies, language, and who gets to claim Americanness. They don’t love this country; they want to own it, the way a bored child clutches a toy they no longer enjoy but refuse to share.

I hope Bad Bunny walks onto that field like a living act of resistance. I hope he sings every note in Spanish, waves that flag high, and gives not one inch to the people who mistake cruelty for strength and ignorance for virtue.

Let Fox News hosts rupture blood vessels trying to translate his lyrics. Let ICE threats ring hollow. Let Trump stew in silence, wondering how a kid from Vega Baja managed to capture the world without ever bowing.

Bad Bunny doesn’t need their approval. He already has something they’ll never understand: authenticity. Truth without permission. Power without cruelty.

And in a country that worships domination and punishes conscience, someone who refuses to bow is the most dangerous thing of all.

And the most necessary.

– Michael Jochum
“Bad Bunny and the Great American Meltdown”
via social media
February 1, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
Bad Bunny Wins Grammy for Album of the Year – Isabella Gomez Sarmiento (NPR News, February 1, 2026).
Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish Among Celebrities Criticizing ICE at Grammys – Rebecca Cohen and Nicole Acevedo (NBC News, February 1, 2026).
Bad Bunny’s Historic Grammy Win Delivers a Powerful Message to Trump’s Divided America – Kevin E G Perry (The Independent, February 2, 2026).

See also the previous Wild Reed post:
• John Pavlovitz: Quote of the Day – September 30, 2025