Bad Bunny spread love, making Trump look selfish, stupid, and stale

As I excitedly watched Bad Bunny perform at halftime during the Super Bowl, I was very grateful to the NFL for choosing him and sticking to its guns in keeping him, because up to his appearance, the game was pretty lackluster. Bad Bunny gave the evening a jolt.

And the game continued to be boring right up until the final play, making Bad Bunny’s performance even more special.

Bad Bunny also did something else. He made Donald Trump look foolish. Granted, that is not hard to do at all, but Bad Bunny did it in a way that was entirely unintentional. Trump and his lackeys had spent days — months, actually — raging about Bad Bunny, about who should perform, and about who belongs on America’s biggest stage — read: male, white, straight — and from the continental 48 states, and what kind of culture deserves to be celebrated — read: male, white, straight.

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With all his ranting and fuss, Trump didn’t just expose his usual racism and xenophobia. He made himself look old — again, easy to do — out of touch — ditto — and small and infantile compared to Bad Bunny, who towers above him in so many ways.

Because while Trump was fuming, Bad Bunny was dancing, singing, and celebrating, all the while surrounded by life, love, and greenery.

Now compare that to what Trump surrounds himself with: cold, hard, gray, joyless concrete. He literally tore out rose bushes at the White House and replaced them with slabs of stone. His rallies are seas of identical red hats and angry faces. His world is one of exclusion, complaining, and nostalgia for a past that never actually existed.

Bad Bunny’s halftime performance was the opposite of all that in every imaginable way.

Where Trump encases himself in gold and concrete, Bad Bunny was surrounded by green palm trees, color, movement, and people. It was a scene of exhilaration. The stage looked alive. The crowd looked alive. There were elders dancing, kids dancing, bodies of every shade moving together. It wasn’t covered in white paint like Mar-a-Lago. It wasn’t angry. It was joyful.

That alone was the rebuke Trump deserved. Well, he doesn’t deserve anything related to joy.

Trump likes to pop into weddings at Mar-a-Lago. They are almost exclusively among wealthy white guests who look exactly like him. Bad Bunny staged a celebration that involved people of color. The ceremony felt communal, like a wedding should — of cultures, generations, and histories. The love was real.

Trump cuts programs for the elderly and infirm, dismissing them as expendable. Bad Bunny centered elders, men playing games, older people woven into the performance as living memory, not disposable burdens. One celebrates age as wisdom and heritage; the other treats it as an abnormality.

The irony is that Trump is old, and we all know it and see it. He’s the only one who won’t accept it, and he won’t embrace those who are.

Trump surrounds himself with intolerance and brags about it as strength. Bad Bunny surrounded himself with queerness, with allies, with joy — Ricky Martin, a gay singer, and the indomitable Lady Gaga, a gay icon and unapologetic LGBTQ+ ally. It wasn’t some kind of stunt. It wove perfectly into the tapestry of it all.

Related: 6 Ways Lady Gaga's Super Bowl Show Was Deeply Subversive

That’s what scares Trump the most: a world where inclusion is welcomed.

Trump dances awkwardly to “Y.M.C.A.” and Kid Rock, clinging to songs that feel as tired as his noxious riffing and nonsensical talking points. Bad Bunny had tens of thousands of people dancing to music many of them couldn’t even sing along to. They didn’t need to. His songs, like joy, don’t require translation.

Trump eats Big Macs and steaks in a way that resembles a parody of American excess. Bad Bunny celebrated culture through food, rhythm, and movement — local and global. And there was another thing about the food in the performance: It was entrepreneurial. So mom-and-pop. And we all know Trump only cares about the top 1 percent.

And let’s talk about the NFL, because this matters. Despite Trump’s migration hysteria and MAGA fearmongering, the Latine and Hispanic population in this country isn’t shrinking. It’s growing. It’s young. It’s vibrant. The NFL knows this. That’s why games are being scheduled across Latin America next year. That’s why Bad Bunny made perfect sense.

Bad Bunny represents the future of multiculturalism, as Trump represents the last gasp of the angry white man.

MAGA voices embarrassingly claimed that “an American” should perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. Bad Bunny is American. He’s Puerto Rican. And Sunday night, he made that American territory sparkle on the world’s biggest stage.

Funny how there was no outrage when U2, the Rolling Stones, or Paul McCartney — none of them Americans — headlined halftime shows. The problem isn’t nationality. It’s brownness.

To Trump, Puerto Rico is a “shithole country.” He’s too stupid to understand it’s part of the United States, and he demonstrated his disdain for its people by throwing paper towels at them after the catastrophe of Hurricane Maria.

Perhaps the most poignant and contrasting moment of the performance was when Bad Bunny handed one of the Grammys he recently won to a little boy, a sign that dreams can come true for little Puerto Rican boys like Bad Bunny. It was a beautiful moment.

Bad Bunny gave his award away, while Trump all but stole one, a Nobel Peace Prize he has long been obsessed with receiving. When Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado visited him at the White House recently and slavishly handed Trump hers, it was grotesque. It demonstrated Trump’s selfishness and the fact that he would stoop to obscene levels to get what he wants and what he clearly does not deserve.

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These diametrically opposite moments reaffirmed how Bad Bunny dwarfs Donald Trump in every conceivable way.

By the way, sickeningly, Trump barked viciously about Bad Bunny’s performance, calling it “one of the worst, EVER!” He continued his rant on the toxic Truth Social: “It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A.”

No, Donald, young children witnessed joy, happiness, triumph, sharing, and love. The smile on that little boy’s face when he held the Grammy told you everything you needed to know about setting an example.

Toward the end of the performance, a message flashed on the scoreboard at Levi’s Stadium: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” Trump spreads hateful racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and misogyny at every opportunity.

And on Sunday night, Bad Bunny answered that without saying a word. He sang. He danced. He shared. He spread love.

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