Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have joined others in the MAGA movement this week who evidently can’t contain their excitement over Turning Point USA’s Super Bowl halftime counterprogramming event planned for Sunday. Experts in political science break down why they believe the enthusiasm has to do with fears over what many on the right feel they’re “losing.”On Monday, the right-wing political group founded by Charlie Kirk announced its lineup for its alternative halftime concert, which was created in protest of Bad Bunny being chosen to headline the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show. Many conservatives, including President Donald Trump and several members of his administration, threw a fit when the Puerto Rican global superstar was announced in September. The following month, Turning Point USA said that it would be hosting its own show at the same time as Bad Bunny’s.The concert will feature country singers Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett, with longtime Trump enthusiast and musician Kid Rock as the headliner. The show is being billed as “The All-American Halftime Show,” celebrating “faith, family, & freedom,” per its flyer.While many social media users brutally mocked the organization after it announced its lineup for the concert, those in the MAGA world were beside themselves with excitement. On Tuesday, Vance wrote in a post on X that it was a “fantastic lineup.” Hegseth questioned on X whether his “Department of War” could “get in on this.” And other right-wing accounts have been expressing their enthusiasm over the lineup, like a MAGA social media influencer who goes by the name of Gunther Eagleman, who wrote: “HOLY CRAP! The lineup for TPUSA’s All-American Halftime Show is STACKED!”Conservatives have been furious that Bad Bunny, who sings primarily in Spanish, has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s violent immigration crackdown and MAGA’s overall anti-immigrant rhetoric. Prominent right-wing voices have also been distressed over the fact that the artist plans to perform the halftime show in Spanish. Trump told the New York Post in January that Bad Bunny was a “terrible choice” as the headliner, charging that choosing the Puerto Rican performer sows “hatred.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in October that he didn’t think Bad Bunny — a history-making, Grammy award-winning global phenomenon — would “appeal to a broader audience.” While celebrating the lineup for Turning Point USA’s upcoming alternative halftime show, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) suggested on Monday that Bad Bunny spews “anti-American propaganda.” “Millions of Americans would rather hear good music from these patriots instead of anti-American propaganda from Bad Rabbit, or whatever his name is,” he wrote on X. Experts in political science say that there’s a clear explanation for MAGA’s enthusiasm over Turning Point USA’s alternative halftime show: It’s an opportunity for right-wingers to attack diversity and to “take back” what they fear they’re losing.Antoine Yoshinaka, associate professor of political science at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, pointed out that conservatives have been angry with the NFL over several issues, including Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protests and the league featuring performances of the Black national anthem at pre-game events, to name a few. “I think this is yet another instance that fits this trend, which in this case has led to this reaction,” Yoshinaka told HuffPost. “We are living in a time where conservatives feel emboldened and want to ‘take back’ what they feel they have been losing.”Jaime Dominguez, a political scientist and associate professor of instruction at Northwestern University Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, said that the promotion of the alternative halftime show is an attempt for MAGA to “remain relevant and to continue their assault on diversity.”“[It] exposed their loathing of the Spanish language,” he told HuffPost.Emma McIntyre via Getty ImagesBad Bunny accepting the award for Album of the Year for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” onstage during the 68th Grammy Awards on Feb. 1.Labeling the MAGA concert as “all-American” with an all-white lineup was intentional — and not “subtle,” experts say. Dominguez said the event being billed as “all-American” with an all-white lineup, is “very intentional” — and that the organizers are playing to their base. When Dominguez first saw the flyer for the alternative halftime show, the words that first came to his mind were “distraction,” “division” and “petty.”The promotion of the concert uses one’s “race and ethnic heritage to disparage their American authenticity,” he said. “It’s not subtle at all,” Yoshinaka said about the promotion of the Turning Point USA concert. “It’s the type of music (rock, country) sung by a type of person (white) in a specific language (English). Not at all a coincidence.” Yoshinaka also pointed out that when the organization released a survey in October to gauge what music genre their would-be audience would like to see featured at the concert, the first option on the questionnaire was, “Anything in English.” “No subtlety there,” he said. The promotion of the TPUSA concert implies that speaking Spanish is not associated with being American. As Dominguez previously emphasized to HuffPost, “The Spanish language is as American as apple pie and more so in particular states that have a large concentration of Latinos.”What’s more, Dominguez said on Wednesday that many of Bad Bunny’s critics don’t seem to “realize that Puerto Rico is part of America.”“It’s another attempt to denigrate a person of color who has a global impact,” he said. “Let’s remember that ‘illegal immigrants’ are, for many on the right, synonymous with Hispanic or Latino,” Yoshinaka said. But both Dominguez and Yoshinaka agree that the vitriol toward Bad Bunny also has a lot to do with his public criticisms of Trump. “Bad Bunny in 2026 isn’t shy about expressing his political views against Trump and his policies,” Yoshinaka said. “He’s outspoken. And he’s from Puerto Rico, which, if you listen carefully to some of the reaction, means he’s not really an ‘American’ in the same way that a person from one of the 50 states or D.C. is.”And Yoshinaka believes that the accusations from the Trump administration and prominent conservatives that Bad Bunny promotes “hatred” or that he’s “anti-American” all boil down to Trump’s unpopularity. “Since he’s not willing to admit that his policies are unpopular or that the things that people worry about (e.g., the economy) are indeed in bad shape, he’s left with this ‘anti-American’ labeling of his critics,” he said. “It’s a way to delegitimize your opponent without having to address the substance of their criticism.”Yoshinaka also pointed out the irony that so many conservatives are supposedly planning to boycott the big game’s halftime show, when the right often accuses the left of perpetuating a so-called “cancel culture.” Besides, why wouldn’t the NFL want Bad Bunny to headline the halftime show, anyway? Yoshinaka said it’s ironic that MAGA is celebrating the lineup for the halftime counterprogramming when Bad Bunny just made history days ago at the 2026 Grammy Awards. He won the Album of the Year award for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” marking the first time a Spanish-language album won the top honor. “He’s one of the most popular artists around the world at the moment,” Yoshinaka said, adding that it “makes perfect sense” that the NFL would want to be associated with him.