The Super Bowl used to bring the country into the same room. One Screen. One Stage. One performance we all saw together …..

By David Morse – Market Researcher and Author.

In 2026, there are two halftime shows. One on the field, headlined by Bad Bunny. And one built as an alternative, an “All-American” counter broadcast organized by Turning Point USA and led by Kid Rock for viewers who would rather watch something else. The divide is visible before the game even begins.

It could easily be said that 2026 has been the year of Bad Bunny. Un Verano Sin Ti broke streaming records, passing 20 billion plays and becoming the most-streamed album ever. He has defined global music for years now and, just days ago, made history again, winning Album of the Year with a Spanish-language record.

And it lands in a country where the reality is often very different from the perception. There are roughly 65 million Hispanics living in the United States today, close to one in five Americans. Nearly two-thirds were born here. For most of those born in the US, English is their primary language. They are growing up here, working here, raising families here. And still deeply proud of where their families came from.

For tens of millions of Latino families, seeing Bad Bunny on that stage feels like recognition. Familiar. Earned. A global star, fully himself, at the center of American culture. There is love in that moment. Pride. A sense of being seen. Applauded.

For other Americans, the reaction is more unsettled. The language around it gives that away. Talk of invasion. Talk of danger. The sense that Latino presence is something new or threatening, even though it has been part of this country for generations.

That rhetoric does not live in isolation. ICE enforcement has expanded. Immigration detention has climbed above 70,000 people on any given day. Investigations have shown that large shares of those being held have no violent criminal convictions, and many have no criminal record at all.

Families are living with fear. Legal residents questioned. Even US citizens have at times been detained and forced to prove who they are before being released. The uncertainty alone is enough to unsettle entire communities.

Layered over all of it is the political climate. A president who posted imagery placing former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces onto ape bodies. Whose name has appeared repeatedly in the Epstein records that continue to surface and circulate. Who pardoned the January 6 rioters. And still, roughly four in ten Americans remain comfortable with it all.

Same game. Same night. Two halftime shows. Two reactions. One country, revealed.

I know which one I’m cheering for.