Politics

Bad Bunny created a cultural phenomenon. Can he spark a political one?

Published

5 months ago

February 8, 2026

The world is watching for Bad Bunny to make a political statement at the Super Bowl. Democrats are watching closely to figure out how to make their own.

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, the Puerto Rican recording artist known globally by his stage name, has created a pop culture phenomenon that will converge at a historic halftime show performance at the Super Bowl on Sunday when the New England Patriots play the Seattle Seahawks. Though Bad Bunny already made his Super Bowl debut alongside Shakira and Jennifer Lopez back in 2020, this time the spotlight will be on him and his exclusively in-Spanish catalog. And while his invitation triggered a harsh backlash on the right from the president on down, it’s also marking a major inflection point for Hispanic Americans of all backgrounds.

Sunday may prove to be Bad Bunny’s biggest chance to move the dial.

There’s an opportunity here, Democrats told Blue Light News, to turn Bad Bunny’s cultural phenomenon into a political one, right as the party is mounting its strongest resistance to Trump’s sweeping deportation agenda — and with months to go before the midterms to make amends with Latino voters who have left their tent.

Former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who is of Puerto Rican descent and whose tenure in the House was marked by his outspokenness for the Latino communities he represented, emphasized that Democrats need to seize this moment to win back Latino support.

Democrats “do too little to engage the Latino community, and then they wonder why all these Latinos voted for Trump? Because you didn’t knock on their doors asking to vote for the Democrat. You failed to message us in so many ways,” he said. “They should embrace it.”

“It’s such a huge watershed moment,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he used this as a very unifying moment, but also on very resonant and salient grounds to send a message to people.”

There’s already signs of what’s on the Latino rapper’s mind.

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say, ‘ICE out,’” Bad Bunny said last Sunday as he accepted the Grammy for Best Música Urbana Album for his record-smashing “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” — just hours before taking home the night’s biggest prize, Album of the Year. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens — we are humans, and we are Americans.”

Bad Bunny isn’t new to political endeavors. But he has long focused primarily on island politics — he’s a big activist for Puerto Rican independence — and has only occasionally weighed in on mainland issues.

In 2024, shortly after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe infamously disparaged Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” during the pre-show for Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, Bad Bunny posted an endorsement of Kamala Harris to his tens of millions of Instagram followers. But he never appeared with Harris on the campaign trail.

His political trajectory has followed other Latino voters’ in recent months, however. Polls show many Hispanics have been particularly outraged at the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. And they are highly motivated to vote and could shift left, after consecutive election cycles where Trump made significant inroads with Latinos.

Americans overall in recent polling have shown an increasing souring on Trump’s handling of immigration. The two fatal shootings in Minneapolis and the stream of videos of ICE raids online are driving a fierce grassroots opposition that is pushing Democrats to hold the line on Blue Light News and not cave in negotiations on the DHS funding bill. But Trump’s crackdown has been felt most acutely in Latino communities. For many, the stories of families being detained have fueled a feeling of solidarity across the diaspora.

“That’s bringing people of all kinds together — especially the Latino community, the diaspora of Latino communities, that come from so many different places, so many different subcultures. It’s bringing us together in a new vision of latinidad,” said Chicago Alderman Michael Rodriguez, who represents the city’s historically Mexican Little Village community. “Our community is being assaulted right now.”

During Bad Bunny’s massive world tour last year, the artist did not schedule any shows on the U.S. mainland, in part due to concerns that ICE would target his concerts for immigration enforcement operations. “It’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about,” he told i-D magazine in a September interview.

After the rapper was announced as the halftime performer in September, Corey Lewandowski said there would be ICE enforcement operations at the Super Bowl — seemingly bringing to life some of the concerns that Martínez Ocasio voiced. Local leaders in the Bay Area have said this week they’ve privately been told no ICE officers will be at the show. DHS has remained more vague publicly about enforcement plans around the game. DHS did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Meanwhile, Republicans this weekend — many of whom in the MAGA universe have referred to Martínez Ocasio as “Woke Bunny” — are holding their own halftime performance to make a statement. Turning Point is counterprogramming Bad Bunny’s performance with a made-for-television “All American Halftime Show” featuring Kid Rock. “I think that that part of the country just felt offended,” said Andrew Kolvert, a spokesperson for Turning Point. “There needs to be a counter voice that says, ‘Hey, you know, we love this country. We love the rule of law, we love our troops, we love law enforcement, we love traditional America.’”

For Democrats, the question of how to better engage and win in Latino communities has dogged them as the party searches for a way out of the wilderness since their 2024 election losses. Bad Bunny has shown a natural ability to bring those communities together with his music, filling stadiums across the world for multi-night shows.

“It’s not that easy. We’re 23 countries, we fight each other every day,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), who represents the largest Puerto Rican community in the Midwest — and whose city of Chicago was an early target of Trump’s increased immigration enforcement efforts. “For Bad Bunny to be able to bring Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Dominicans together, and all feel like they’re being heard and that he can represent them, says a lot about who is.”

As for Martínez Ocasio, he’s keeping mum about what to expect from his performance on Sunday night. “It’s going to be a huge party,” he said at a preview event on Thursday. “I want to bring to the stage, of course, a lot of my culture. But I really don’t, I don’t want to give any spoilers. It’s going to be fun.”

The cultural solidarity that Bad Bunny’s music has fostered could translate into political unity, Rodriguez, the Chicago alderman, said. And some of his fellow Democrats are ready to build on the moment.

“There’s just no scenario where he is not going to have a message,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said. “There are moments in history that really move a community and solidify them within a political movement. And I think that’s happening right now.”

Politics

Norway is pillaging hearts and minds

Published

4 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Norway’s fans became famous around New York City for plopping down wherever they are and pretending to row like Vikings — in Times Square, in rain-drenched parking lots before matches and inside MetLife Stadium so vigorously the stadium swayed. Today they bring the “Viking row” to Boston for Norway’s heavyweight clash with France.

For Norwegians, embracing ancestors known above all for rapacious pillaging is complicated stuff, but the country’s leaders are hoping to send some modern messages about their country, too. Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus’ first visit abroad without their parents was to cheer on Norway’s first men’s World Cup appearance in 28 years.

A former member of parliament and foreign minister, Ambassador Anniken Huitfeldt was posted to Washington in 2024, just in time for the election of President Donald Trump. At a New York party for Norwegian fans, she was treated like a celebrity.

When I met her in the crowd, another journalist from back home stopped to say hello. Some guys asked to be in a photo with her. After the interview was over and I was in the middle of a tailgate outside, a random Norwegian volunteered to help me understand some of the chants – and it turns out he said he knew her, too.

This interview was conducted in English, and Huitfeldt’s remarks have been edited for length and clarity.

This seems like an amazing exercise of soft power. The Viking army — you see Norwegians in the subway, on the escalators.

I think it’s been very important to how we look upon ourselves. Because the Viking history has always been important for Norwegians, but we never brag about it in a way. And we haven’t focused that much about it.

But here, it has really made us proud. And I think a lot of people were a little bit embarrassed at the beginning. But when they saw how well it was received here in the U.S., we have really taken part in it. So now we are super happy. I mean, everybody’s joining.

How are you using it for your job, beyond just sort of introducing Norway to Americans and North Americans? Is it helping you do diplomacy?

We put a lot of effort in social media. We have given interviews before to POLITICO about our chef and diplomacy, and we’ve got so much attention. But the video where we are rowing, the staff at the embassy, has been spread to 3 million people. [It had more than 4 million views by Wednesday.]

Hard pivot to foreign policy: Are you looking for anything in particular out of the NATO meeting this week with the president? Is there something Norway would like to see?

I think it’s very important to focus on how European countries over the years have really stepped up. And now it’s a pretty good deal for the U.S., I think, the whole NATO package. Because we spend more on defense than the U.S. does when it comes to GDP, and at the same time we purchase very much of the weapons from the U.S. that we send to Ukraine.

And not to forget how we are taking care of American security up in the high north. I mean all those nuclear weapons on the Kola Peninsula — the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world — those weapons are not directed at Oslo, but at the United States. So we are also taking care of American homeland security up in the high north. So it’s a pretty good package for the American people, the cooperation that we have in NATO.

How has the Trump administration’s positioning towards the Arctic, towards Greenland, towards other things, changed your job, or what you expected your job to be?

Well, it has been challenging, especially when it comes to Greenland, where we have been very united with the other European countries. I think we have been very coordinated in how we talk about this, and for us it’s extremely important that we don’t change the geography and borders up in the high north.

Politics

Wes Moore lays out his vision for America

Published

7 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is on an Independence Day collision course with President Donald Trump.

Moore is planning to deliver a sweeping speech on patriotism on July Fourth from the Maryland State House in Annapolis — with the aim of counterprogramming what Trump promised would be the “most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA.’”

In an interview with Blue Light News, Moore said he thinks Trump is going to spend the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding talking about himself — but that America deserves something more.

“The president is incapable of meeting the moment,” Moore said.

In his split-screen remarks, called “The Work of Patriotism,” the former Army captain and Afghanistan veteran is expected to “make the case that Democrats cannot cede patriotism to Donald Trump — and that love of country is not about loyalty to one man, one party, or one political spectacle,” according to Ammar Moussa, Moore’s press secretary.

Moore will “draw a contrast between patriotism and nationalism, making the case that nationalism is about allegiance to a person or a movement, while patriotism is about allegiance to the country and the people who make it worth fighting for,” Moussa said.

“We are a nation of strength because we are a nation of sacrifice,” Moore will say, according to a draft of his remarks.

But Moore insisted he’s not trying to be a foil to the president.

“I’m trying to be a foil to darkness,” Moore said. “I think I’m trying to be a foil to fatalism. I think I’m trying to be a foil to self-serving ideologies. What I want people to know in all this is that I believe strongly that we need a future-facing vision for this nation.”

That’s exactly what someone who’s “not running” for president would say, right? Standard Maryland gubernatorial reelection fare.

The speech follows a pattern of growing visibility for Moore. He’s been on numerous podcasts and in new media. The day after his speech, he’s expected to appear on an episode of Jubilee’s “Surrounded,” a booking that’s becoming routine for prominent Democratic figures such as Pete Buttigieg, Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

On Saturday, Moore is heading to battleground Michigan, a potential early 2028 primary state, where he’ll stump for gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson in Detroit, Saginaw and Flint — all pivotal locales to win reelection in Maryland, of course.

Moore has said he’s “laser-focused” on his 2026 reelection campaign. Or, as he explained in an interview with POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin: “I’m hungry, but I’m not thirsty.”

The Maryland governor also had his own thoughts about what the progressive victories in New York’s primaries mean, and how that insurgent energy could be harnessed by 2028 Democrats.

“I think harnessing the energy means driving for the results that people are aspiring to,” Moore said, citing primary wins in his own backyard too: “I created an entire slate, the Leave No One Behind slate in Maryland that was wildly successful, and if you look at the candidates that I endorsed and supported, you can’t find an ideological thread in them. We endorsed the progressive legislator from Montgomery County, and we supported the prosecutor in Baltimore County.”

In fact, Moore endorsed some 200 candidates across the state, and his advisers say 93 percent have either won or are in the lead.

“What connects them is a belief that the status quo has got to be disrupted,” Moore said.

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