Bruce Springsteen, at age 75, is back on tour, in Europe. The native of Freehold, Monmouth County, New Jersey, isn't letting up, telling people what he thinks of Donald Trump.
On May 17, at a show in Manchester, England, he told the crowd, "My home, America, 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."
He added, "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."
As a result, online, we are seeing people saying they are fans of Bruce, but that he should leave politics out of it.
They are not fans of his. If they were, they would know that politics has been part of who he is and what he's written and sung about from the first time he sang about how hard it was to get a job -- or that having a job and working hard at it didn't necessarily mean you were making a living.
These people are idiots. They heard his song "Born in the U.S.A." and presumed it was about loving your country, when it's about how your country doesn't love you back.
These are the same people who went to the movies the next year, and cheered Sylvester Stallone playing John Rambo and killing Commies, but they didn't listen when he said that he wanted what every surviving Vietnam veteran wanted: "For our country to love us as much as we love it!"
If I make it to age 75, I hope I'll still have enough left in me to say, "I still love this country, but (whoever it is at the time) is messing it up, and I'm calling them out!"
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Bruce isn't the only old local guy speaking out against Trump. Robert De Niro, 81 and from Manhattan, first came to our attention with the films Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets in 1973, the same year that Bruce and his E Street Band released their 1st 2 albums, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle.
Trump, who has committed tax fraud, among other kinds of fraud, compared himself to Al Capone, the 1920s Chicago gangster who went to federal prison after being convicted of tax fraud. He has also pardoned lots of people guilty of tax fraud, like himself. And sexual assault, like himself.
De Niro played Capone in the 1987 film version of The Untouchables. He's an actor who has always made sure to study his role, especially if it's a real person, as in the case of Capone. He released a statement about Trump on October 15, 2023, at the Stop Trump Summit, hosted by The New Republic, at the Cooper Union in New York, where Abraham Lincoln gave a famous speech during the 1860 Presidential campaign. It has been recirculating in the wake of Springsteen's remarks:
I've spent a lot of time studying bad people. I've studied their characteristics, their mannerisms, the absolute banality of their cruelty.
However, there's something different about Donald Trump. When I look at him, I don't see a bad person -- I see evil.
I've met gangsters sometimes. This guy tries to be one of them, but he can't be one. There's such a thing as a "thief's honor." Yes, even criminals usually have honor.
Whether they do the right thing or not is another story, but they do have a moral code, however distorted it may be.
But Donald Trump doesn’t have that. He's a thief with no morals or ethics. No sense of right or wrong. No respect for anyone but himself -- not for the people he leads and is supposed to protect, not for the people he does business with, not for the people who follow him blindly and loyally, even for the people who consider themselves his "friends." He despises them all.
We New Yorkers have come to know him over the years as he has poisoned the atmosphere and littered our city with monuments to his ego. We knew firsthand that this was someone who should never be considered a leader. We tried to warn the world in 2016.
The fallout from his tumultuous presidency has divided America.
Make no mistake: Evil thrives in the shadow of ridicule, and we must take the danger of Donald Trump very seriously.
So today we issue another warning. From this place where Abraham Lincoln spoke -- right here in the beating heart of New York -- to the rest of America:
This is our last chance.
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As usual, when a celebrity speaks out, the cry from the right wing is, "Stick to (whatever it is that you usually do), leave politics out of it." Or, "Shut up and sing." (Which, of course, is a very stupid contradiction.)
Nobody ever says that when they agree with your politics. They say it to Springsteen, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, just as they said it to The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks) in 2003. They don't say it to Ted Nugent and Kid Rock. They say it to De Niro. They don't say it to his contemporary Jon Voight or his former co-star James Woods.
These people are idiots. Trump only became a candidate with a chance at the Presidency because he was a celebrity.
Let me give you an example. Like Trump, Doug Clark is a real estate investor. Unlike Trump, he actually is worth a lot of money. Like Trump, he's had some legal issues as a result of his business. Unlike Trump, he's never been convicted of a crime. Like Trump, he's been on reality-TV shows. Unlike Trump, he's much younger, admits he's bald, flies his own plane, and is an actual tough guy. Like Trump, reality TV made him famous beyond his hometown. Unlike Trump, he's never given any indication that he wants to run for office.
Clark was already somewhat famous in 2015. If he had run for President then, he would have gotten some attention. But he would have been quickly dismissed as a business bro who wouldn't know how to govern if he actually won.
Trump was already considerably more famous, and famous for being rich, strong and smart -- none of which he actually was, or is, but image, perception, optics, was everything to him, and to his fans.
And all those conservatives who ran in the 2016 Republican Presidential Primaries? Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and all the rest? Not one of them told him, "Shut up and go back to your real estate. Nobody wants to hear a celebrity's opinion. Not one of them told him, "Stick to real estate, leave politics out of it."
If one of them had, would it have made a difference? Maybe. We'll never know, because, as usual, conservatives are like a badly cooked hamburger: Tough and hard on the outside; cold, soft and unhealthy on the inside. They took his insults, and folded, never calling the fat bastard's bluff.
Now, calling the fat bastard's bluff, like Springsteen and De Niro are doing, may be too late.
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