The Hilarious Decline of MAGA’s Brief Cultural Relevance
The TPUSA show is fun for many reasons. The first is that Kid Rock is terrible, not just musically but lyrically; her songs celebrating statutory rape have gone viral recently. “Young girls, young girls, I like them underage, see / Some say it’s statutory (but I say it’s mandatory),” Kid Rock rapped on the soundtrack of the 2001 children’s film. Osmosis Jones. Kid Rock was something of a cultural force in 2001, but in 2026 he’s become a two-decade has-been. Over the past decade, he has clung to MAGA out of desperation to maintain some semblance of cultural relevance. And TPUSA, a nominally Christian organization, is happy to host a man who celebrates statutory rape because he’s a decidedly pro-Trump artist and there just aren’t many of those around right now. TPUSA needs Kid Rock as much, if not more, than they need him. (Who was their backup option: Lee Greenwood?)
This is a modest and familiar position for the right, which has spent most of the last half-century complaining about the nastiness of American popular culture toward conservatives. But what’s surprising is that a year ago it seemed like that was finally changing. The right had made real progress, from podcasters (and comics) like Joe Rogan and Theo Von, to comics (and podcasters) like Matt Rife and Tony Hinchcliffe, to the aforementioned athletes who did the Trump dance last fall and winter. Rogan recently called ICE a “gestapo,” and we don’t see Trump dancing very often anymore. Amon-Ra St. Brown, the star wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, apologized after doing so last fall during a game Trump attended. Aside from that, the two most recent examples of the Trump dance that I encountered were both from South American leaders: Javier Milei, the extremely strange president of Argentina, did it at a White House event last November. And Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro did it in January to mock the president, who responded by sending Delta Force to kidnap him days later.
Instead, what you see is violent backlash against Trump everywhere. Anti-ICE protests are taking place at the Winter Olympics in Milan (agents were sent there to protect US officials). Minnesota athletes and sports teams spoke out against ICE’s presence in their state last month. Bad Bunny criticized ICE last week at the Grammys, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell — who no one ever called “woke” with a straight face — defended him for it. Even fans of All Elite Wrestling – admittedly a slightly more woke professional wrestling league than WWE – chanted “Fuck ICE” during a recent match in Las Vegas. Trump is widely hated. Supporting him, even while doing a silly dance, is deemed suicidal.
