Bad Bunny’s technicolor halftime show stole the Super Bowl with a joyful rebuke against hate.

The past year in Stephen Miller’s America has been unbearably bleak. When masked thugs with “blanket immunity” kidnap 5-year-olds and murder nurses, it tends to darken the national mood. But international mega-star Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (aka Bad Bunny) took the stage during the Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 8 and gave the best possible response to Miller’s dystopic dreams: a burst of unbridled joy and a dizzying celebration of love, labor and the power of living our everyday lives despite hardships, all performed in a lyrical language that Miller, in every possible way, lacks the capacity to understand.

People should view Bad Bunny’s singular performance as the second part of a political two-step aimed at the white-nativist heart of this racist regime. Part one was a week earlier, when, after winning the Grammy for album of the year, Bad Bunny began his acceptance speech by saying, “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say: ICE out!”

Then came step two: bringing the technicolor beauty of Puerto Rican culture to the Super Bowl stage. In a time of monsters, Bad Bunny was posing an alternative world: a place where laborers are seen and celebrated, where hurricanes and their victims aren’t forgotten and where community – not atomization – fuels society. In the swirl of his irrepressible music, sung in Spanish, and an elaborate set design that conjured the Caribbean in rich and playful detail, Bad Bunny refused to step into our dismal world. Instead, he brought us into his.

“The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

I saw the game in a bar, where the people watching around me initially seemed more interested in the halftime show because of the controversy around Bad Bunny’s selection as a performer – the prospect of his Spanish-only music had predictably enraged right-wingers and prompted them to launch a counter halftime show. In 30 seconds, though, many were standing and dancing. When Ricky Martin came out as a surprise guest, you could feel the room swoon. At the end, everyone rose in an actual ovation.

The performance was so dense with meaning that, during the fourth quarter, people around me turned to discussing what part of the show they connected with the most – and not only because that was more fun than debating whether the Patriots were going to punt again.

For me, the most powerful moment was when Bad Bunny name-checked, one after the other, every country in the Americas: a bold, delightfully unsubtle statement against white ethnocentrism.

President Donald Trump of course had a racist temper tantrum. Perhaps he was offended by a billboard in the background – in English, for his benefit – that read, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

For this cowardly regime, it’s now a political act just to acknowledge the cultural power of Puerto Rico, to speak a beautiful language, to sing, to dance and to live in peace.

Dave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation, where this story was originally published.