When the NFL in September 2025 introduced that Dangerous Bunny would headline the following Tremendous Bowl halftime display, it took simplest hours for the political outrage system to roar to existence.
The Puerto Rican performer, identified for blending pop stardom with outspoken politics, was once rapidly recast by way of conservative influencers as the newest image of The united states’s “woke” decline.
Native land Safety Secretary Kristi Noem joined the critics on conservative commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast.
“Well, they suck, and we’ll win,” she mentioned, talking of the NFL’s selection. “And they’re so weak, we’ll fix it.”
Then it was once Dangerous Bunny’s flip. Website hosting “Saturday Night Live,” he embraced the debate, protecting his heritage and answering his critics in Spanish sooner than stating, “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”
By the point NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell addressed the backlash, the outrage had already served its objective. The tale had develop into some other entrance within the tradition battle between left and proper, entire with nationalism, identification politics, media spectacle and performative anger.
As a researcher of propaganda, I’ve spent the previous 3 years monitoring those cycles of shock throughout social platforms and partisan media, finding out how they hijack the nationwide dialog and spill into native politics. My contemporary ebook, “”Populism, Propaganda, and Political Extremism,” is guided by way of a unmarried query: How a lot of our political outrage is truly our personal?
Outrage sooner than the development
Tradition wars have lengthy formed American politics, from battles over gun rights to disputes over prayer in faculties, ebook bans and historic monuments.
Sociologist James Davison Hunter coined the time period “culture wars” to explain a habitual fight, no longer simply over social problems however over “the meaning of America.” Those battles as soon as arose from spontaneous occasions that struck a cultural nerve. An American flag is ready ablaze, and electorate briefly take facets because the political global responds in sort.
However these days that order has reversed. Tradition wars now start within the political sector, the place skilled partisans introduce them into the general public discourse, then watch them take grasp. They’re advertised to media audiences as storylines, designed to spark outrage and switch disengaged electorate into indignant ones.
One transparent signal that outrage is being manufactured is when the backlash starts lengthy sooner than the designated “controversial event” even happens.
In 2022, American audiences have been steered by way of conservative influencers to sentence Pixar’s movie “Lightyear” months sooner than it reached theaters. A same-sex kiss became the movie right into a vessel for accusations of Hollywood’s “culture agenda.” Pushed by way of partisan efforts, the outrage unfold on-line, blending with darker components and in the end culminating in neo-Nazi protests out of doors Disney International.
This primed outrage seems around the political spectrum.
Closing spring, when President Donald Trump introduced an army parade in Washington, main Democrats briefly framed it as an unmistakable display of authoritarianism. By the point the parade arrived months later, it was once met with dueling “No Kings” demonstrations around the nation.
And when HBO host Invoice Maher mentioned in March that he can be eating with Trump, the comic confronted a preemptive backlash, which escalated into vocal grievance from the political left sooner than both of the lads raised a fork.
The El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles promotes LGBTQIA+ Delight Month and Pixar’s ‘Lightyear’ on June 21, 2022.
AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Pictures
These days, few issues are advertised as aggressively as political anger, as noticed within the contemporary firestorm towards Dangerous Bunny. It’s promoted day-to-day thru podcasts, hashtags, memes and products.
More and more, those fiery narratives originate no longer in politics however in pop culture, offering an attractive hook for tales concerning the left’s keep an eye on over tradition or the best’s claims to actual The united states.
In contemporary months on my own, outrage amongst The united states’s polarized political bases has flared over a Cracker Barrel brand alternate, “woke Superman,” Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle advert and, with Dangerous Bunny, the NFL’s Tremendous Bowl performer.
Platforms like X and TikTok ship the following diatribes, amplified by way of partisan influencers and unfold by way of algorithms. From there, they develop into nationwide tales, ceaselessly marked by way of headlines promising the newest “liberal meltdown” or “MAGA tantrum.”
However manufactured outrage doesn’t forestall on the nationwide stage. It surfaces in native politics, the place those tales play out in protests and the city halls.
The native echo
I sought after to know the way those narratives succeed in communities and the way politically lively electorate see themselves inside this cycle. During the last 12 months, I interviewed liberal and conservative activists, starting in my native land, the place opposing protesters have confronted off each Saturday for twenty years.
Their indicators echo the similar narratives that dominate nationwide politics: warnings concerning the left’s “woke agenda” and fees of “Trump fascism.” When requested concerning the opposition, protesters reached for acquainted caricatures. Conservatives ceaselessly described the left as “radical” and “socialist,” whilst the ones at the left noticed the best as “cultlike” and “extremist.”
But underneath the anger, either side known one thing greater at play – the sense that outrage itself is being engineered. “The media constantly fan the flames of division for more views,” one protester mentioned. Around the boulevard, his counterpart agreed: “Politics is being pushed into previously nonpolitical areas.”
When Cracker Barrel tried to modify its brand in August 2025, the transfer was once met by way of critical grievance from unswerving shoppers who most well-liked the emblem’s conventional symbol. President Donald Trump quickly weighed in and steered the corporate to revert to its outdated brand.
AP Picture/Ted Shaffrey
Each camps pointed to the media as the principle offender, the power that “causes and benefits from the outrage.” A liberal activist seen, “Media tend to focus on whoever shouts the loudest.” A conservative demonstrator agreed: “I feel like the media promotes extreme idealists. The loudest voice gets the most coverage.”
“It’s been a crazy few years, moving further to the extremes, and tensions are always rising,” one protester mirrored. “But I think people are realizing that now.”
Around the divide, protesters understood that they have been members in one thing greater than their weekly standoffs, a device that converts each political distinction into a countrywide spectacle. They noticed it, resented it and but couldn’t break out it.
That brings us again to Dangerous Bunny. The anger that American citizens are inspired to really feel over his variety – or in protection of it – assists in keeping the rustic locked in its corners. Research display that because of those cycles, American citizens at the left and proper have advanced an exaggerated sense of the opposite facet’s hostility, precisely as some political demagogues intend.
It has created a break up display of the rustic, actually on the subject of Dangerous Bunny. On Tremendous Bowl evening, there shall be dueling halftime displays. On one display, Dangerous Bunny will carry out for approving audience. At the different, the conservative nonprofit Turning Level USA will host its “All-American Halftime Show” for the ones intent on tuning Dangerous Bunny out.
Two displays. Two Americas.
