𝗕𝗥𝗢𝗪𝗡𝗦𝗩𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘 𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗠𝗣 𝗙𝗔𝗡𝗦; 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗔𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗧𝗢 𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗣𝗨𝗘𝗥𝗧𝗢 𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗡 𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗧𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗥 𝗕𝗔𝗗 𝗕𝗨𝗡𝗡𝗬 𝗜𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗔 𝗕𝗜𝗚 𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗠𝗣 𝗦𝗨𝗣𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗥?

                                                                     

Moments ago, I read a Facebook post of someone stating they will not be watching this year's Super Bowl because Puerto Rican entertainer Bad Bunny is set to perform at halftime.  Of course, that person has an absolute right to boycott that football game and to publicly state the reason.

A commentator I'm not familiar with, Benny Johnson, is also of that mindset, describing Bad Bunny as an "anti-ICE activist" and a "massive Trump hater," clearly stating that he, also, will not be watching the Super Bowl February 8, again, clearly his right.

The backlash is part of a larger clash between Trump-aligned conservatives and Puerto Rican cultural and political figures, one that stretches back years to the fallout from Hurricane Maria, when Trump claimed that Puerto Rican officials were exaggerating the death toll and, cavalierly and disrespectfully, tossed paper towels at a relief center. In case you've been living with partisan blinders on the last decade, Donald Trump is not particularly fond of darker-skinned folk, claiming they either eat cats and dogs or falsify death tolls.

When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis left a deep and lasting mark. Nearly 3,000 lives were ultimately lost, yet Trump repeatedly questioned the official death toll, claiming political opponents had inflated the numbers to make him “look as bad as possible.” Instead of uniting the nation in support, as most Presidents do in a crisis, he lashed out at Puerto Rican leaders, including San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, calling her guilty of “poor leadership” and suggesting Puerto Ricans expected “everything to be done for them.” Investigations later found that Trump administration officials deliberately slowed and obstructed the release of Congressionally approved aid, compounding the island’s struggles.

The one moment in particular that came to symbolize Trump’s attitude: during a visit to Puerto Rico, was his casual tossing of paper towel rolls into a crowd of storm victims at the Calvary Chapel in Guaynabo. Many saw the gesture as mocking and profoundly out of touch with the gravity of the suffering around him. Reports that he privately suggested “divesting” from Puerto Rico or even trading the island for Greenland only deepened feelings that he regarded the territory as expendable rather than part of the American family.

Those wounds have not healed. In recent years, Trump’s rhetoric has continued to alienate Puerto Ricans. At a 2024 rally in New York City, a comedian’s joke describing Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” was met with outrage, and Trump was criticized for not condemning the remarks directly. Even as he boasted about providing more aid to Puerto Rico than any president before him, many remembered his earlier dismissive attitude. His decision in early 2025 to make English the official language for all federal business added another layer of unease, with some Puerto Ricans worried about the erosion of their cultural identity. To many, the Republican Party’s removal of language about Puerto Rican self-determination from its platform suggested that the island’s status was being sidelined rather than respected.

In this context, Bad Bunny’s outspoken criticism of Trump resonates with large parts of Puerto Rico’s population, but also ensures he remains a target for Trump’s most loyal supporters. For conservatives, boycotting the Super Bowl over his performance is a symbolic rejection of what they see as anti-Trump, anti-American sentiment. For Puerto Ricans, however, the broader story is about years of feeling dismissed and disparaged by a president who questioned the scale of their tragedy, threw paper towels into a crowd of survivors, and at times suggested they were a burden to be cast aside. The friction over the halftime show, then, is just one visible expression of the deeper divide between Trump’s movement and the island he once considered trading away.