They’ve some similarities, Bruce Springsteen and Donald Trump — guys of their 70s with houses in New Jersey and massive constituencies amongst white American males middle-aged and older. And each, in very totally different respects, are the boss.
That is about the place it ends.
The veteran rock star, lengthy a political opponent of the president, stood up as one among Trump’s most distinguished cultural critics final week with a verbal takedown from a British stage.
As is his nature, Trump is preventing again — arduous. He calls Springsteen a “dried out prune of a rocker” and is even bringing Beyoncé into the fray.
On Monday, the president steered Springsteen and Beyoncé ought to be investigated to see if appearances they made on behalf of his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, final fall represented an unlawful marketing campaign donation.
Opening a tour in Manchester, England, Springsteen instructed his viewers final Thursday that “the America I like, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is at present within the palms of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”
He added, “Tonight we ask all who imagine in democracy and one of the best of our American experiment to rise with us, elevate your voices towards authoritarianism and let freedom ring.”
And the forwards and backwards started
Springsteen later made reference to an “unfit president and a rogue authorities” who’ve “no concern or thought for what it means to be deeply American.”
The following morning, Trump known as Springsteen extremely overrated. “By no means favored him, by no means favored his music or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he isn’t a proficient man — only a pushy, obnoxious JERK,” he wrote on social media.
“This dried out prune of a rocker (his pores and skin is all atrophied) must KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT till he will get again within the Nation,” he mentioned.
The following evening, additionally in Manchester, Springsteen repeated his criticisms.
“It is no shock what Springsteen’s political leanings are and have been for a lot of a long time,” mentioned veteran music author Alan Gentle, writer of the upcoming “Do not Cease: Why We (Nonetheless) Love Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.” “He is anyone who has been outspoken in his music and his actions.”
The Boss’ statements this week confirmed he wasn’t afraid to talk out “at a time when so many individuals and establishments are simply sort of rolling over,” Gentle mentioned.
Springsteen is not new to this recreation
It isn’t the primary time Springsteen has spoken out towards Trump — or a Republican president.
When former President Ronald Reagan referenced Springsteen’s “message of hope” at a marketing campaign cease through the peak of the rocker’s “Born within the USA” reputation, Springsteen puzzled if Reagan had listened to his music and its references to these left behind within the Nineteen Eighties economic system. He additionally has had an often bumpy relationship with onetime Republican presidential candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a fan of his music.
Springsteen has campaigned for Trump’s opponents, together with Harris final fall. In 2020, he mentioned that “an excellent portion of our wonderful nation, to my eye, has been totally hypnotized, brainwashed by a con man from Queens.”
He is aware of the outer-borough reference nonetheless stung a person who constructed his personal tower in Manhattan and ascended to the presidency. Trump typically stays at his golf membership in Bedminster, New Jersey. Springsteen grew up in New Jersey — you could have heard — and lives in Colts Neck, New Jersey, now.
Trump would not hesitate to go after the largest musical names that talk out towards him, like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. However the political danger could also be much less; their youthful, extra feminine audiences are much less prone to intersect with Trump’s core constituency.
Throughout his profession, Springsteen has challenged his viewers politically past presidential endorsements. The 1995 album “The Ghost of Tom Joad” bluntly documented the lives of struggling immigrants — Mexican and Vietnamese amongst them. And his 2001 music “American Pores and skin (41 Photographs),” criticized the capturing by New York Metropolis cops of an unarmed Guinean immigrant named Amadou Diallo, angering a number of the blue-collar segments of his fan base.
Clearly, Springsteen has conservative followers and a few who want he’d keep away from politics, Gentle mentioned. Nonetheless, “40 years later, it is arduous to think about what they suppose would occur” with Trump, he mentioned.
Whereas Trump made some extent to reference Springsteen’s criticism in an abroad present, he and the E Road Band have not carried out in the USA since earlier than the 2024 election. His tour final yr hit closely on themes of mortality, much less of politics. He has a number of European tour dates scheduled this yr into July and hasn’t introduced any new American reveals.
