Bruce Springsteen and the now purely performative Resistance

What’s the point of prefacing what’s supposed to a celebration of rock and roll, perhaps Mr. Springsteen’s final run considering he will turn 76 later this year, with a political diatribe of largely recycled talking points?

Last week, legendary singer, songwriter, and all-around-rocker, Bruce Springsteen chose to open his European “Land of Hope and Dreams” Tour with a full-throated, rather lengthy broadside against President Donald Trump rather than playing an actual song.  “The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ‘n’ roll in dangerous times,” he exclaimed. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.  Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring! ”  Nor was he quite finished, as the speechifying continued throughout the concert, where Mr. Springsteen proceeded to rattle off the usual litany of the Trump Administration’s supposed sins.  Before “My City of Ruins,” a song he used once upon a time to unite America after 9-11, he noted “There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now. In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.  In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.  They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society.  They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands.  They are removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now.   A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.  The America l’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real and regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people. So we’ll survive this moment. Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, ‘In this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.’ Let’s pray.”  If there was any doubt the Boss had thought long and hard about making these statements, including obviously writing and rehearsing them, he repeated much the same a few nights later at the second concert on the tour – and posted the transcript to his website, brucespringsteen.net along with the video on YouTube.

Of course, the sentiments he expressed are nothing new, either generally speaking in regards to progressive criticism of President Trump, where they seem a recycled mismash of themes dating back to 2015, or personally for Mr. Springsteen, who has long been an advocate for Democrats.  Just last year, he appeared on behalf of President Trump’s opponent Vice President Kamala Harris, referring to Trump as “the most dangerous candidate for President in my lifetime.”  He also posted a short video on social media around the same time, claiming “Perhaps not since the Civil War has this great country felt as politically, spiritually and emotionally divided as it does than at this moment. It doesn’t have to be this way.”  In 2020, he told The Atlantic, he didn’t know “if our democracy could stand another four years of his custodianship.” In 2016, he called President Trump a “moron” in an interview with Rolling Stone.  In addition, his 2020 album Letter To You, was widely believed to feature certain songs and lyrics that were direct attacks on President Trump.  In “House of a Thousand Guitars,” he sang, “The criminal clown has stolen the throne, He steals what he can never own.”  “Rainmaker,” which tellingly is a part of his recent setlists and is dedicated “to our deal leader,” can be seen as a metaphor for the entire Trump phenomenon, a story of desperate people latching onto dubious leaders who promise what they cannot possibly deliver:

People come for comfort or just to come
Taste the dark sticky potion or hear the drums
Hands raised to Yahweh to bring the rain down
He comes crawling ‘cross the dry fields like a dark shroud
Rainmaker, a little faith for hire
Rainmaker, the house is on fire
Rainmaker, take everything you have
Sometimes folks need to believe in something
So bad, so bad, so bad
They’ll hire a rainmaker

Nor is President Trump the first Republican who has drawn Mr. Springsteen’s ire.  He was notoriously anti-George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, including saying fuck him on stage at a concert, and Ronald Reagan.  George W. Bush in particular was the target of almost an entire album, 2007’s Magic, where Mr. Springsteen variously called the Iraq war a mistake, wondering who will be the last to die and claiming the wise men are all fools, accused President Bush of being a charlatan, practicing petty magic tricks on an unsuspecting populace, “I got a shiny saw blade, All I need’s a volunteer, I’ll cut you in half, While you’re smilin’ ear to ear,” and described him as a threat to democracy, “My ship Liberty sailed away, On a bloody red horizon, The grounds keeper opened the gates, And let the wild dogs run,” and “My faith’s been torn asunder, Tell me is that rollin’ thunder, Or just the sinkin’ sound, Of somethin’ righteous goin’ under.”  In this sense, Mr. Springsteen is simply engaging in more of the same and taking aim at President Trump is to be expected from such an ardent Democrat, but still, the timing and location certainly seem odd considering the current political circumstances.  President Trump was only recently elected to a four year term and barring a health issue or some other completely unforeseen circumstance, will be in office for more than three and half years.  While this doesn’t preclude people like Mr. Springsteen from opposing him or criticising him, what’s the point when he can’t be voted out of office and will likely never face voters again?  The midterm elections will be necessarily crucial to the second half of Trump’s second term, but even then, they remain 18 months away, the primary process to determine Democrat and Republican candidates hasn’t even begun yet, and nothing anyone can say right now is likely to have an impact or even be remembered by the time election day rolls around in November 2026.  In addition, he chose to make these comments in England before an audience that couldn’t vote him out if they wanted to, nor can they vote against Republicans in the midterms, meaning they could loathe President Trump as much as Mr. Springsteen – and do even less about it.  With all this in mind – Mr. Springsteen being a lifelong Democrat who’s said much the same in the past, President Trump being in office for the next three and a half years whatever anyone says, and an audience that can’t do a thing – what’s the point of prefacing what’s supposed to a celebration of rock and roll, perhaps Mr. Springsteen’s final run considering he will turn 76 later this year, with a political diatribe of largely recycled talking points?

Sadly, I can see none, except that the reincarnated Resistance after President Trump’s victory in November appears to be entirely performative, lacking any substance or plan, and Mr. Springsteen is simply signaling to his fellows that he remains a proud member of the movement.  For better or worse, he is not alone either in celebrity, media, or political circles.  A few days earlier, notorious Trump-hater Robert De Niro did much the same at the Cannes Film Festival, where once again before a foreign audience he launched into a useless, senseless tirade, telling everyone what they already knew about his opinions and political predilections.  “In my country, we are fighting like hell for the democracy we once took for granted,” he said.  “That affects all of us here, because the arts are democratic, art is inclusive and brings people together, like tonight. Art looks for truth. Art embraces diversity, and that’s why art is a threat,” he added.  “That’s why we are a threat to autocrats and fascists. America’s philistine president has had himself appointed head of one of our premier cultural institutions (the Kennedy Center). He has cut funding and support to the arts, humanities and education,” he continued.  “You can’t put a price on creativity, but apparently you can put a tariff on it. Of course, this is unacceptable. All of these attacks are unacceptable,” he concluded.  While it might be easy to dismiss Mr. Springsteen and Mr. De Niro as simply entertainers, operating out of their regular sphere of influence, they could easily be said to be taking their cues from Democrat politicians.  For example, progressive firebrands Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have embarked on the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, where they regularly slam the Trump Administration while having no plans of their own, nor any ability to implement any plans they might have.  Governor JB Pritzker recently called for mass protests, assailing “Those same do-nothing Democrats want to blame our losses on our defense of Black people, of trans kids, of immigrants, instead of their own lack of guts and gumption” and declaring, “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now,” stressing that Democrats “must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.”  “We will never join so many Republicans in a special place in hell reserved for quislings and cowards,” he added.  For his part, former Vice Presidential candidate and current Minnesota governor Tim Walz can’t seem to go a single week without castigating the President, most recently claiming  he was “a tyrant abusing power to persecute scapegoats and enemies.”  Still, perhaps no one encapsulated this phenomenon more than Senator Cory Booker, who broke the chamber’s filibuster record by speaking for more than 25 hours, not in support of a bill or opposed to a bill, but simply to protest President Trump. 

While all of these men and women, from entertainers to politicians, are certainly entitled to say what they want, I am just as entitled to ask, what’s the point?  In precisely none of these cases has President Trump responded by altering his agenda or approach by even the slightest bit.  On the contrary, if his response to Mr. Springsteen is any indication, he continues to revel in the fight, posting on Truth Social, “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States.  Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden…This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”  Whatever your personal feelings about either, the reality is simple:  None of this is constructive.  It will not help a single person anywhere in the world, forget solve any real problems.  Instead, it’s all performance, emoting rather than doing, even when emoting will not change a single mind.  Sadly, that is what the vaunted Resistance has been reduced to, mere performance art, where politicians are no more than entertainers themselves.