People Can’t Stop Laughing at Turning Point USA’s Pick for Alternative Halftime Show

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Kid Rock
Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

What to Know

01 Turning Point USA announced it would host an alternative show to the Super Bowl after complaints..
02 In February 2026, the organization finally announced who will be performing at the "All-American Halftime Show."
03 People on social media can't stop laughing about it because the headlining act — Kid Rock — is exactly who you would expect.

Turning Point USA had months to find an artist to perform at its alternative Super Bowl halftime show, and somehow managed to land on the exact artist you would expect: Kid Rock. The organization announced the lineup for its “All-American Halftime Show” on February 2, 2026, and yeah…no surprises there. In many ways, Kid Rock is the obvious choice. He’s a vocal MAGA supporter who performed at an event celebrating President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and he frequently appears on Fox News.

Still, it’s such an obvious choice that people online were almost shocked that Turning Point USA didn’t choose someone else just for the sake of…novelty, maybe?

The jokes started rolling in immediately after the announcement.

Reacting to the news on Reddit, one person wrote, “It’s just… so on the nose. Is Ted Nugent the opener?” In reality, the other artists performing at the event are Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett. Someone else said, “This is so embarrassing, it brings me so much joy.”

Though it seems painfully on the nose, maybe it was more of a strategic decision than it seems. One critic joked that the choice could’ve been Green Day-inspired, since the band is also performing at the Super Bowl this year. “Ah, an American idiot,” they wrote, using the title of a Green Day song to describe Kid Rock.

Because almost everyone saw this coming, people also left comments like, “it’s so funny that after several decades Kid Rock is still the best these people can come up with.”

Others still couldn’t get over the fact that the alternative halftime show even exists.

Turning Point USA announced its decision to have an alternative halftime show in October 2025 after the NFL’s actual Super Bowl halftime headliner, Bad Bunny, sparked backlash among conservatives. Bad Bunny is from Puerto Rico and performs in Spanish, which is the second most spoken language in the United States. Some conservatives have acted like Bad Bunny’s not even popular, even though he was Spotify’s most-streamed artist in 2025 and he won three awards at the 2026 Grammys, including Album of the Year.

But as some critics have pointed out, if relevancy was really the issue here, Kid Rock would probably not be the alternative choice. “Kid Rock hasn’t been relevant for years,” one critic pointed out. Another sarcastically wrote, “Wow, he’s so ever popular.”

Some people are honestly confused.

So, no one is really all that surprised that Kid Rock is performing at Turning Point’s alternative halftime show. But some people are surprised that people actually want to watch it. On X, one person questioned, “Can somebody PLEASE explain to me why maga hates Puerto Ricans, who ARE ALSO AMERICANS, so much that they’d willingly subject themselves to watching Kid Rock during halftime, instead of one of the most popular performers on the planet? I don’t get it.”

Additionally, some questioned why an alternative halftime show is needed in the first place. “It’s always amusing how these types love to call people snowflakes and mock people for needing safe spaces,” one Redditor wrote. “Then they turn around and do s— like this.”

But hey, Vice President JD Vance seems to be looking forward to it. He shared the announcement on X, writing, “Fantastic lineup for the TPUSA halftime show, including the great Bob Ritchie AKA KID ROCK.”

Paige Sheffield (she/her)