PHOTO: PBS.ORG
With fewer than 100 days left until the U.S. presidential election, Bruce Springsteen has been uncharacteristically quiet on the political front.
Granted, he usually steps up in October — that’s when Vote for Change happened in 2004, as well as his rally appearances for Barack Obama — but it’s somewhat surprising that he’s managed to keep quiet about this particular election, in which one of the candidates seems so diametrically opposed to everything he’s ever stood for, both personally and in his work. (Guess which one? And all those of you who say Hillary need to stop trolling me.)
It would have been reasonable to assume that Springsteen would have been a Bernie backer — though he never said so publicly — and it’s possible he’s less-than-enamored of the woman who did become the Democratic Party’s standard bearer. On the other hand — Trump. The man could be a robber baron straight out of “Death to My Hometown.”
So is it time for Bruce to wade into the political arena once again? I’ll make that determination the way I do everything — by process of elimination.
Here are the options:
1) He can “shut up and sing.” I always found this to be the most ludicrous suggestion when referring to Springsteen and thoughtful songwriters like him. Yes, Britney Spears, whose body of work doesn’t exactly contribute much to the public discourse, should probably shut up and sing — or not sing, whichever. But practically all of Springsteen’s recorded output is devoted to what it means to be an American — the “distance between American dream and American reality,” as it were.
To pretend that his music is all about rocking out and feeling good, and that it’s an affront to his audience for him to express an opinion on the state of the nation and the people who want to run it, is downright nonsensical. If you get huffy when he delivers a short political “PSA” at his concert but raise your $8 beer and pump your fist when he sings “Born in the USA,” you haven’t really been paying attention.
2) He can get medieval on Trump’s @$$. Like I said earlier, Trump could be a villain from a Bruce Springsteen song — he’s the rich-enough-to-forget-your-name fat cat who wants to be king. (In fact, if Springsteen made him up, nobody would believe him.) He disparages the immigrants Bruce sang about on The Ghost of Tom Joad and the war heroes he extolled on Magic. He practically bankrupted Atlantic City, which is IN NEW JERSEY!
At the very least, Bruce should get up on stage in East Rutherford on Aug. 23 — and Chicago Aug. 28, and Washington Sept. 1, and so on and so on — and, in between some carefully chosen songs, denounce Trump for what he is: a small-minded, divisive, racist would-be demagogue whose ideas and proposals (such that they are) are downright un-American.
3) He can go all-in on Hillary. Here’s where it’s get tricky. Hillary Clinton is unpopular with a lot (A LOT!) of folks. She has a reputation for being ruthless and self-serving. She can be tough to watch in a public setting (although she’s gotten better in recent years). She has a disturbing inclination to try to be all things to all people. She’s also whip-smart, super experienced, a dedicated public servant, and the only thing we have standing between us and the living, breathing disaster that would be a President Trump.
That’s not to say we don’t need reform, that money shouldn’t be taken out of politics, or that it’s OK for our leaders to be beholden to big business. All those things need to be addressed, and we’ll get there — Bernie has given us a fine jump start in that direction. But right now, if that flag flying over the courthouse is to mean anything, we need to keep moving incrementally forward, not backward into the stone age Trump would have us living in.
So Bruce, I say: Shout it from the rafters (or at least the stage); talk about it on your book tour; pen an op-ed for the New York Times (we hear you can write good). You have a platform that could help get Hillary into the White House, and the stakes for this country have never been higher — you should use it.
You may all now flame me in the comments: