Trump facing 'massive backlash' against 'hard-edged right-wing culture'

President Donald Trump drew widespread criticism after forwarding, on his Truth Social platform, an overtly racist, AI-generated video depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. Much of the criticism came from a combination of liberals, progressives, centrist Democrats and right-wing Never Trump conservatives, yet there was some outcry in MAGA World as well.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) called the video out, and a frustrated 2024 Trump voter from New Mexico called C-SPAN and lamented, "I voted for the president; I supported him. But I really want to apologize. I mean, I'm looking at this awful picture of the Obamas. What an embarrassment to our country. All this man does is tell lies. He is not worthy of the presidency. He takes bribes blatantly, and now he’s being a racist blatantly."

A few days after that, Puerto Rican reggaetón star Bad Bunny performed en español at the 2026 Super Bowl Half Time Show — much to Trump's chagrin — and the event enjoyed way more viewers than Turning Point USA's alternative halftime show, headlined by Kid Rock. According to CBS News, 135 million viewers watched Bad Bunny; the El Paso Times reports that 6.1 million people watched Turning Point's event.

During a conversation for The New Republic's podcast posted on February 9, host Greg Sargent (formerly of the Washington Post) and NR reporter Alex Shephard stressed that between the "backlash" to the racist video and all the viewers who watched Bad Bunny, it's obvious that many Americans are rejecting MAGA's view of the world.

Shephard told Sargent, "I think that one of the big shifts is that there was this idea in the last election — 'Let Trump be Trump' — sort of pushed by Susie Wiles in particular, currently the chief of staff. That, essentially, the president knows best and that what he's doing may seem kooky and off the wall and irrelevant to politics as usual — but pursuing that kind of stuff is what people like about him, and you should just let him do it…. I think what we’re starting to see now is an increased willingness for politicians to call this kind of stuff out."

Shephard argued, however, that even with the "backlash," Trump is still going to say and do offensive things.

Shephard told Sargent, "I think that we're not even close to seeing the bottom here yet, but it's really, really starting to break…. But the truth of the matter is that if they go anywhere, they're met with massive public resistance and backlash. You see it at the Grammys. You see it at the Super Bowl. You see it in the streets of Minneapolis. You see it all over the country. And I think there was this brief moment where it seemed like we were entering into a kind of 'new era' defined by hard-edged, right-wing culture, and that everything had changed. And all of that power that they had a year ago? It's just already gone now."

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