The culture wars sure experienced a bad hare day with Bad Bunny’s Superbowl performance. While I personally don’t pay a lot of attention to popular youth culture, it sure got a lot of people going.
I had largely consigned the kerfuffle to distant memory when my friend Steve Dunn sent me a copy of his take on the subject. Steve is a retired professor who writes an opinion column for The Telluride Times in which he presents the liberal perspective. He is my hero because he has actually been paid for his ranting, while I remain without recompense for my indignant sputtering, not that I am whining or anything.
Steve apparently enjoyed the show more than I did. I have pretty low expectations for every halftime show, finding them glossy, vulgar, homogenized spectacles targeted at 20-year-olds with ADD. The only part of a halftime show that might have held any interest for me was Janet Jackson’s famous “wardrobe malfunction” in Superbowl XXXVIII, which I missed while trying to scoop up the last bit of guacamole. I may affect cultural pretensions but am always happy to wallow in the salacious.
Steve’s column explored the cultural vitality of Bad Bunny’s performance, celebrated diversity, and took a couple of whacks at Trump, Christian nationalism, taking over Greenland, censorship, and conservative xenophobia. I have to respond.
First, Bad Bunny’s most frequent dance move seemed to be grabbing his crotch, which I found ironic. This move seemed to mimic the “personal scratching” by generations of men on their couches watching TV, much to the annoyance of their spouses, yet now they are treated to a big-screen performance showcasing the same behavior to popular acclaim. Life isn’t fair.
The goal should be to incorporate everyone into a national identity as Americans.
Second, I really have to wonder about giving the performance in Spanish, a language which probably 80 percent of the audience doesn’t understand. What was the point? My own competence in the language is mostly limited to creating new terms, such as pronouncing myself a queso grande, much to the amusement of my Spanish speaking friends. But I don’t watch opera, which is often performed in Italian, so maybe it is just me. In any event, the grinding seems pretty universal.
Third, my point of reference is admittedly the “good old days,” in which halftime shows featured marching bands and where a player wearing white football shoes created a scandal. Today, the players’ entire outfits look like an explosion at a crayon factory, although I have yet to see anyone playing in burnt umber.
Fourth, as a militant supporter of the free market, I have to concede that the programming was the choice of the NFL and network, and their call to make. If they can make some money off of it, well, good for them.
And, no, I didn’t watch the “alternate” halftime show with Kid Rock. I have never followed him nor any of the other acts, although I did find it amusing when he blasted the pile of Bud Light with a rifle. Different strokes, and all that.
The rumination in the column about diversity got me thinking. I personally enjoy diversity in beliefs and culture. A world solely populated with people just like me would be terribly boring, as there would be no new things to learn, nor people to argue politics with. And a diversity of viewpoints is a good way to ensure that policy is well thought out. But, how diverse should a nation be?
To function as a nation requires that we see each other as one whole people, not as a collection of separate populations. We need to share a common language and be able to talk with each other. We need to have enough commonality in worldview to have a functioning social contract. We need to be similar enough to see each other as “us” and not as “them.”
A nation composed of distinct, isolated cultural identities in which the first allegiance is to the group, with little or no identification with the country, will have difficulty functioning. Each will inevitably be competing against the others and will be easily exploited by opportunistic politicians. We are hardwired for xenophobia, and tend to view those outside the group with distrust, which is often aggravated by envy or resentment.
The traditional “melting pot” model has served us well. Each incoming group largely adopted the culture and identity of the majority, and in turn, imparted some of their old culture into the majority culture. Relatively recent immigrants tend to be some of the most fiercely loyal Americans and frequently distinguish themselves in military service to the country.
The recent trend to highlight and exaggerate the separate cultural identities of Americans is destructive. Should the objective of immigrants be to “join the club,” or to just be an “economic tourist” exploiting the opportunities?
The goal should be to incorporate everyone into a national identity as Americans. ∆
John Donegan is a retired attorney in Pismo Beach who is always ready to “bust a move” if the Superbowl needs a show, but keep a chiropractor on standby. Send a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in March 12-19, 2026.
As long as Christian Nationalism is being touted by the powers that be in Washington, we will never have a national identity.
Ever since my grandparent’s generation, the Greatest Generation, exited the stage, there is nothing of a shared peril that binds us like surviving WWII did. I’m a burnt out Gen-Xer, those younger than me dont live amongst the giants my grandparent’s generation were. Instead, they live amongst people like Steve-O from Jackass, the Kardashians, and Beyonce. High art consists of duct taping a banana to a gallery wall and music consists of drunk, mumbling, semi-literate rappers discussing murdering their ops. The only shared peril we really know is watching Brittany Spears get a DUI.
So, John, before castigating everyone but yourself, remember, this isn’t the 60’s. No even smokes cigarettes anymore. The most dangerous activity younger Americans engage in is drinking bottled water. We live amongst the puny, and that includes of course your chronically self-referential generation.
Aside from not having a shared experience, all of our problems stem from your cohorts. You leave us with a broken economy we can never recover from. In fact, your generation’s unwarranted prosperity depends on it. Without Americans at each other’s throats over transgender bathrooms and boys wearing dresses, we might actually find, for those of us born after you, that what we have in common is poverty, rapidly declining living standards, and downward mobility. The post WWII Boom could have been extended for generations, instead your generation replaced it with credit cards, illegal aliens, and a service economy. It’s hard to take anything you people say, seriously, as you sit at the top of the heap (generationally speaking) having literally done nothing to deserve it. You dodged the draft, tore down the institutions and legal structures your parents created that would have preserved our prosperity, and now, with full stomachs and in your dotage, tell us to just eat cake. This is your gift to us. Your generation will be despised for ages and spoken about with total disgust as our children live in cardboard boxes, develope preventable diseases, and live amongst the ruins of Rome. Since none of you had the same kind of grit my grandparent’s generation had, you chose to tear everything they did to the ground, and you did so all the while calling it “equality.” Last time I checked, African-Americans aren’t in much better shape than they were than during Jim Crow. Sure, they got a national holiday. Sure, they got a couple streets named after civil rights leaders. But do they, or any of the rest of us, have the kind of economic security you have? Absolutely not. Instead, social security is set to become insolvent and shut down. Medicare is going away as are food stamps. No one can simply buy a house by being a shoe or car salesman, like your generation could. If you ever left the cocoon you exist in or are accustomed to and actually tried to live on $20 an hour, you’d want to burn it all down too, as millions of Americans want to (and pray for). So, John, you and all your friends can basically do us a favor and just STFU or simply spread the wealth. At this point, after a lifetime of your generation’s bunko, no one believes any of your generation’s scams dressed up as bright ideas. NAFTA, scam. Commodities Futures Modernization Act, Scam. Free Trade, scam. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, scam. These are the tools your generation used to ruin the United States, enrich yourselves, and impoverish the rest of us. It won’t be forgotten and will go down in the annals as a supreme act of generational betrayal and abrogation of the social contract. If you ever find yourself rotting in an old folks home, never visited by anyone, this is why, sir. You people deserve everything you get. Roast in hell, General Crassus, and take your “free market” with you. We’re in f__king WWIII.
Fly: Too much caffeine this morning?
Nah, just pissed.
Try decaf.
Fact is, state-provided education is why our generation questioned authority. The Greatest Generation were racist, alcoholic sheep who didn’t question their assigned roles to raise a family and obey their leaders, but their hearts weren’t in it. Maybe relating to our kids as human beings didn’t work in all cases, but we left you with the ability to define your own place in life. We attempted to unify our society with acceptance and compassion. I will die knowing that is strength, not weakness.
Your generation will still pale in comparison to my late grandparent’s generation and always will.
Your parents didn’t invent alcoholism, there’s still plenty of drunks running around. Sounds like your whining, sir.
If your generation really wanted to “unify society,” maybe you guys shouldn’t have exported our factories and exported our jobs. It’s amazing how fractured society gets when people of ALL races can’t put food on the table.
Are your parents still alive? I dare you to call them “racist,” “alcoholic,” and that following the rules is a bad idea. If it wasn’t for them, you’d be speaking German and dealing with REAL racists. Your parents actually fought and DIED fighting nazis (white supremacists), remember? So for all their faults, we’re all lucky they were around. Or have you forgot? It was your generation who destroyed everything they built and who are 100 percent responsible for the state of our country. I’d be curious to know how well off you are? If you are a white, male, Boomer who was half way responsible, you’re probably very well off. So you can get off your high horse and take some responsibility for once in your life. Shame on you.
In a mixed-race or non-binary marriage? Boomers fought for your civil rights, but now you’re on the short list.
Your wife have her own credit card? Work in an office where she won’t be groped and laughed at if she reports it? Does she come home not reeking of cigarette smoke? We personally experienced all of the above.
Worried about clean air, polluted water? Blame billionaires, not boomers. You consistently complain that it is all slipping away, but all I see at candidate’s volunteers committees is grey hair.
This country is being looted, and useful idiots are blaming Pedro instead of Preston.
Steve:
“… all I see at candidate’s volunteers committees is grey hair.” The reason all you see at candidates committees is grey hair is because thanks to your generation destroying and mismanaging our economy, the rest of us are forced to work two jobs. Further, only a fool would think either party or their self seeking candidates could be savaged. Until Citizens United gets changed, corporate interests are the only thing both parties respond too. Another reason Boomers waste their time at candidates committees is because you people are the last generation who has anything to lose in the economy. The rest of us are totally f___ed. In fact, many of Want it to collapse. That’s the only way things will change. This isn’t Norman Rockwell’s America, sir, where kindly politicians politicians respond to concerned citizens. If you follow politics or academia at all, you are familiar with a famous study out of Princeton that proves our interests don’t matter: 2014 study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” published in Perspectives on Politics.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment
Cambridge University Press & Assessment.” Your exhausting focus on race ignores class, that is where those of us younger have true commonality. Women still get groped at work, just look at what Bill Clinton and Trump have done. People still drive drunk. Women are still paid less than men. I’m sorry, modernity isn’t the paradise you’d like to take responsibility for.
Steve:
What your generation wants is a giant “thank you” because when we go to a restaurant no one is smoking, right? Guess what, thanks to what your generation did to our economy (debasing the dollar and exporting our industrial base), no one can afford to eat out except white Boomers. Mixed marriages? Young people aren’t getting married, they can’t afford to. Polluted water? Have you seen what’s raining in Tehran? Oil.
I mean, seriously, your generation is so self referential and self absorbed, you started out with a generational anthem by The Who called “My Generation,” lol.
Try harder, we’re not buying your generation’s BS until we see it in our wallets.
What’s the matter, Steve, cat got your tongue?
Steve’s generation leaves us smoke free restaurants, lol. What about our economy? Oh, that’s right, it’s in his and every other Boomer’s checking and the ridiculous equity in the house he paid $10,000 for in 1980.
I’ll take smokey restaurants any day, sir.
Steve’s generation, thanks to their parents winning WWII, have never gone for want. Their focus on cultural issues instead of material ones is because they never had to worry about putting a roof over their heads, pay for college, health insurance, survive on declining wages, corporations that don’t pay taxes, and declining living standards, etc. The rest of us are supposed to be impressed because we can dine in restaurants that are “smoke free.” BFD. I’ll take free college, good jobs, cheap health insurance, and a rising standard of living over a smoke free restaurant any day.
You know, Mr. Donegan, I hear you. But when some Americans are perfectly fine with the killing of U.S. citizens in the streets for no good reason, tax breaks for the ultra wealthy when health insurance and food stamps are cut for the needy, ridiculous tariffs placed on our most loyal allies and now a war the administration cannot give a rationale for or a goal for or a timeline for, I’m sorry, you can pound sand with your call for unity.
Keeping Iranian from building nuclear weapons seems like a pretty good reason for a military intervention, as well as eliminating or reducing their sponsorship of terrorism around the area. Having an American city destroyed seems pretty compelling, even if just having to listen to Democrats whine “why didn’t somebody do something to prevent it?”. Killed for” no reason”? Carrying a gun to a protest where you plan to fight with the cops seems pretty foolish, and it is impossible to completely protect people from themselves. Or, intentionally blocking a road, and then using your car to force a cop out of the way so you can escape arrest, doesn’t seem very bright, either. And listening to Democrats complaints about the predictable deaths and injuries from the riots they incited to try and force the country to obey them and to cease the enforcement of our immigration laws, aren’t very compelling.
For me, John D is merely a foil. It’s what he represents that bothers me. It took all I could to support Israel during its razing of Gaza. But to drag America into its BS and put our men and women at risk is a bridge too far. We are tied to the hip to Isreal at this point. Their policy is our foreign policy now, their is no divergence. If they create a manmade environmental disaster in Tehran, we are. It’s literally raining oil in Tehran. This is insane. When oil tankers get attacked and sunk, it results in millions of gallons of oil spilling. Israel is a tiny country, it’s only matter of time before they come knocking on our door asking for our men and women to fight and die for them. I could of sworn George Washington at his farewell address warned us not to get involved in “foreign entanglements.” Our country is broke, no one can afford housing, food, or medical care here, yet we spend billions fighting Iran? Our political class is in a world of their own. Again, this all comes back to the Citizens United ruling that allows countries like Isreal to exert so much control on our cowardly politicians that all Isreal has to do is snap it’s fingers.
AMERICA FIRST, not ISRAEL FIRST.
Welp, I guess we’re off to the races. They’re sending in 5000 marines to Iran. This is ridiculous.
Caroline Leavitt dodged a question about Trump reinstating the draft saying “All options are on the table.” That would get kids off their Steam Decks and out on the street. Unlike the 60’s, Homeland Security is ready with militarized agents and detention centers.
Going to jail for refusing to be drafted into another unjust war is probably one of the more noble ways to get imprisoned. Nelson Mandela went to prison for what he believed in. African-Americans went to prison for demanding the Bill of Rights applied to them too. John Brown paid the ultimate price for his beliefs too. Just as my late, hippie parents told me, if a draft returns, we’ll just move to canada. If a draft has to be instituted, it means the war is unpopular. In an actual representative government, that sentiment would be expressed by not getting into war in the first place, instead, Congress punts and gives the Executive the AUMF. Tells you how weak our congressmen and women are.