Turning Point USA’s decision to try and compete with the NFL’s Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday never seemed like a well-conceived idea. Culturally, fascism has never offered much in the way of entertainment, and TPUSA isn’t exactly known for fun.
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A bummer from start to finish, the event looked like it was shot in a warehouse—imagine a CPAC stage, then make it smaller, cheaper, and harder to see. The visual palette consisted of dark red, darker red, and the occasional white light. It is difficult to overstate how dark and red everything was much of the time.
The show opened with an electric guitar-led rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” an ironic twist given this is the same political party movement that reliably melts down anytime someone puts a creative spin on the song.
Brantley Gilbert
This was followed by the also-ironic rap-country musician Brantley Gilbert, who declared “this is America.” Gilbert felt compelled to release a preemptive statement insisting he wasn't being political, just excited to “perform at halftime during the biggest game in American football.”
Arguably the best performance of the night came next from Gabby Barrett, who occupies the country music niche of not being Carrie Underwood. Not surprisingly, Underwood performed for the NFL just before the start of the second half of the game, following Bad Bunny.
Unfortunately, Barrett’s medium high point was followed by Lee Brice, who performed his brand-spanking new single, “Country Nowadays"—a whiny anthem about a middle-aged right-winger lamenting his oppression by wokeness, all while pretending to be totally unbothered by it all, and it has weird anti-trans lyrics like:
I just want to cut my grass, feed my dog, wear my boots
Not turn the TV on, sit and watch the evening news
Be told if I tell my own daughter
That little boys ain’t little girls
I’ll be up a creek in hot water
In this cancel-your-ass world
Finally, it was time for headliner Kid Rock to perform his 1999 hit “Bawitdaba.” Rock appeared in jorts and lasted approximately two minutes, intermittently lip-synching poorly over a prerecorded track of his song.
Rock then took an extended break while a string duo filled the void, before returning in slacks and being reintroduced as Robert Ritchie. He followed this metamorphosis by performing a cover song of Cody Johnson's 2021 hit "Til You Can't."
The “All-American Halftime Show” ended with a memorial tribute to Charlie Kirk. Adding to the weirdness of it all was the absence of Kirk’s widow and current CEO of TPUSA, Erika Kirk, who never appeared. Maybe she was busy watching Bad Bunny.
