“One of the worst, EVER… nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” President Donald Trump fumed on Truth Social after Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show. His allies even built a rival: Turning Point USA’s “All-American Halftime Show,” which peaked at a little over 5 million concurrent YouTube viewers, about 4 percent of a typical Super Bowl halftime audience.
The same fight is erupting in other traditionally apolitical arenas, and many of them can’t be policed. JD Vance was booed at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony and British-American competitor Gus Kenworthy posted a profane anti-ICE message (in urine) on his personal social feed; kids on Roblox staged virtual anti-ICE marches and fictional raids; creators on Facebook and Instagram pumped out AI “resistance” fan-fiction or bizarre, viral “no queso, no cheese” protest clips; and Portland’s inflatable-costumed Frog Brigade leaned into “tactical frivolity” to lampoon militarized enforcement.
The pattern is hard to miss: when culture moves to platforms and feeds, MAGA’s counter-programming keeps drawing slivers of the audience while the bigger stages—and the internet’s weirder ones—talk back on their own terms.
People keep saying “culture war” like it’s a scoreboard where one side just flips a switch and wins. What we’re actually seeing is MAGA’s framing getting co-opted by the very culture they were trying to fight, Spanish language hits at the Super Bowl and Fortnite/TikTok protest clips aren’t exactly MAGA propaganda. The old playbook just doesn’t grab today’s audiences the way it did in the 2010s.
B-Z_B-S on
Every subreddit that isn’t a far-right echo chamber is now against ICE. Every. Single. One.
ranchoparksteve on
You know it’s bad for Trump when the Puppy Bowl had double the viewers of his halftime show.
OpenImagination9 on
Resistance takes many forms …
30mil on
They’ve been tricked into supporting the Epstein class.
TintedApostle on
They created the culture war because they refuse to evolve. Extinction burst in play.
hate is exhausting. an ideology hyper focused on things you hate only gets support for a bit. then people get tired over the hypervigilance.
FluidHips on
I know this isn’t exactly what the article was about, but it brought out an idea that I find interesting.
I think it’s fair to say that MAGA’s biggest problem is that it **doesn’t have a real culture**. Its a cult of personality built around one guy from America’s Parasite Class–not a multi-faceted, organic culture.
What does MAGA music look like? MAGA art? MAGA literature? MAGA philosophy, even? I’m not embedded with those people, but since none of it has leaked out into the wider American culture, I don’t think there is one. And without these things, you couldn’t even call it a counter-culture. It’s just a flailing, unproductive reaction.
When you aren’t high enough up on the Maslow hierarchy of needs, I think MAGA is what you get. What they’re really on about is not seeing the American dream for themselves, and in many cases, not even being able to reliably access basic necessities. At least some of them work hard, but like many Americans, they’re drowning in debt and know they’ll never get the white picket fence or a new car. And even worse, they’re seeing it slip away from their children. It brings out some of the worst in them. Not to get too far from the original point, but this is the source of my sympathy for at least some people who are MAGA.
8thSt on
Because their culture is broken, outdated, and racist.
Add in a bunch of pedophilia and pedo protectors, and you got a culture that should be on the way to extinction much faster than we are seeing.
thatguywhoiam on
You can see the edit points from a right wing editor from space
spam__likely on
Even for things that are not for me, like rap, they manage to be funny and entertaining particularly in occasions like this. So, yeah.
lifeat24fps on
MAGAs will always have it base. But its culture war has gone from making their opposition angry to making their opposition roll their eyes and say “oh go fuck yourself”.
Honestly how can you take them serious when the guy complaining about “disgusting dancing” is a serial adulterer who fucks porn stars?
How can I not laugh when the “all-American” halftime show is put together by America’s Favorite Widow, best know for her enthusiasm for pyrotechnics and leather pants? Give me a break.
k_dubious on
The problem with the right is they’re all a bunch of talentless grifters and angry racists. It’s hard to win a culture war — or really, to even *participate* in a culture — when your movement is incapable of creating anything.
jennyfromthedocks on
Of course they are. They have no culture 🤣
Y0___0Y on
They had so much momentum. They just needed to ignore the Epstein files, refrain from bombing foreigners and not done such an intense immigration crackdown that US citizens were killed, and they’d be fine right now.
jherara on
This definitely has a paywall.
p001b0y on
Newsweek is paywalled now?
LockedOutOfElfland on
Anti-MAGA troll comments on 4chan give me hope.
Hot_Tadpole_6481 on
Maga’s last hope is religion. Portraying everyone else as sacrilegious demons will soften the blow of any potential cheating. They will most likely portray the left vs right issue as ‘good verses evil’ wayyy more literally than they have in the past
ClaytonRook on
No culture war only class war. No left and right only up and down. The rich has everybody fighting over the color of our skin and what’s in our pants while they rob the world of all the natural resources and your hard work.
Black_Cat_Sun on
Nice paywall article
Spoonoop on
MAGA is crashing so hard right now, and they are doing it all on their own. They simply cannot refrain from saying or doing something incredibly fucking stupid.
MyClosetedBiAcct on
To be fair, all the culture is created by artists. And artists are usually queer.
Fillmore80 on
There is a paywall! Nice work OP. Anyone got a mirror link to the story?
SixSixWithTrample on
They’re losing a culture war and their opponent isn’t even fighting. We’re all just kinda here.
LongEmergency696969 on
was this written by AI?
Garry_Heckscream69 on
It’s crazy how MAGA literally made a safe space half-time show but the media didn’t make some big deal about “canceling the Superbowl” for some reason
29 Comments
From the article:
“One of the worst, EVER… nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” President Donald Trump fumed on Truth Social after Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show. His allies even built a rival: Turning Point USA’s “All-American Halftime Show,” which peaked at a little over 5 million concurrent YouTube viewers, about 4 percent of a typical Super Bowl halftime audience.
The same fight is erupting in other traditionally apolitical arenas, and many of them can’t be policed. JD Vance was booed at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony and British-American competitor Gus Kenworthy posted a profane anti-ICE message (in urine) on his personal social feed; kids on Roblox staged virtual anti-ICE marches and fictional raids; creators on Facebook and Instagram pumped out AI “resistance” fan-fiction or bizarre, viral “no queso, no cheese” protest clips; and Portland’s inflatable-costumed Frog Brigade leaned into “tactical frivolity” to lampoon militarized enforcement.
The pattern is hard to miss: when culture moves to platforms and feeds, MAGA’s counter-programming keeps drawing slivers of the audience while the bigger stages—and the internet’s weirder ones—talk back on their own terms.
Become a member and read more: [https://www.newsweek.com/maga-bad-bunny-super-bowl-ice-trump-11487919](https://www.newsweek.com/maga-bad-bunny-super-bowl-ice-trump-11487919)
People keep saying “culture war” like it’s a scoreboard where one side just flips a switch and wins. What we’re actually seeing is MAGA’s framing getting co-opted by the very culture they were trying to fight, Spanish language hits at the Super Bowl and Fortnite/TikTok protest clips aren’t exactly MAGA propaganda. The old playbook just doesn’t grab today’s audiences the way it did in the 2010s.
Every subreddit that isn’t a far-right echo chamber is now against ICE. Every. Single. One.
You know it’s bad for Trump when the Puppy Bowl had double the viewers of his halftime show.
Resistance takes many forms …
They’ve been tricked into supporting the Epstein class.
They created the culture war because they refuse to evolve. Extinction burst in play.
Without paywall: https://archive.ph/HHDF0
hate is exhausting. an ideology hyper focused on things you hate only gets support for a bit. then people get tired over the hypervigilance.
I know this isn’t exactly what the article was about, but it brought out an idea that I find interesting.
I think it’s fair to say that MAGA’s biggest problem is that it **doesn’t have a real culture**. Its a cult of personality built around one guy from America’s Parasite Class–not a multi-faceted, organic culture.
What does MAGA music look like? MAGA art? MAGA literature? MAGA philosophy, even? I’m not embedded with those people, but since none of it has leaked out into the wider American culture, I don’t think there is one. And without these things, you couldn’t even call it a counter-culture. It’s just a flailing, unproductive reaction.
When you aren’t high enough up on the Maslow hierarchy of needs, I think MAGA is what you get. What they’re really on about is not seeing the American dream for themselves, and in many cases, not even being able to reliably access basic necessities. At least some of them work hard, but like many Americans, they’re drowning in debt and know they’ll never get the white picket fence or a new car. And even worse, they’re seeing it slip away from their children. It brings out some of the worst in them. Not to get too far from the original point, but this is the source of my sympathy for at least some people who are MAGA.
Because their culture is broken, outdated, and racist.
Add in a bunch of pedophilia and pedo protectors, and you got a culture that should be on the way to extinction much faster than we are seeing.
You can see the edit points from a right wing editor from space
Even for things that are not for me, like rap, they manage to be funny and entertaining particularly in occasions like this. So, yeah.
MAGAs will always have it base. But its culture war has gone from making their opposition angry to making their opposition roll their eyes and say “oh go fuck yourself”.
Honestly how can you take them serious when the guy complaining about “disgusting dancing” is a serial adulterer who fucks porn stars?
How can I not laugh when the “all-American” halftime show is put together by America’s Favorite Widow, best know for her enthusiasm for pyrotechnics and leather pants? Give me a break.
The problem with the right is they’re all a bunch of talentless grifters and angry racists. It’s hard to win a culture war — or really, to even *participate* in a culture — when your movement is incapable of creating anything.
Of course they are. They have no culture 🤣
They had so much momentum. They just needed to ignore the Epstein files, refrain from bombing foreigners and not done such an intense immigration crackdown that US citizens were killed, and they’d be fine right now.
This definitely has a paywall.
Newsweek is paywalled now?
Anti-MAGA troll comments on 4chan give me hope.
Maga’s last hope is religion. Portraying everyone else as sacrilegious demons will soften the blow of any potential cheating. They will most likely portray the left vs right issue as ‘good verses evil’ wayyy more literally than they have in the past
No culture war only class war. No left and right only up and down. The rich has everybody fighting over the color of our skin and what’s in our pants while they rob the world of all the natural resources and your hard work.
Nice paywall article
MAGA is crashing so hard right now, and they are doing it all on their own. They simply cannot refrain from saying or doing something incredibly fucking stupid.
To be fair, all the culture is created by artists. And artists are usually queer.
There is a paywall! Nice work OP. Anyone got a mirror link to the story?
They’re losing a culture war and their opponent isn’t even fighting. We’re all just kinda here.
was this written by AI?
It’s crazy how MAGA literally made a safe space half-time show but the media didn’t make some big deal about “canceling the Superbowl” for some reason