The First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights (ratified in 1791) is the bedrock for protecting its citizen’s freedom of expression and belief. Encompassing religion/faith, speech, press, assembly, to the right to petition against a perceived wrong ~ it affords invaluable protection to dissent, disagreement, and even offend the dispensation of the day without fearing retaliation.
This allows democracy to thrive by allowing open debate, positing minority viewpoints, and disallowing authoritarian control of ideas. It is a long American tradition in its proud experiment in democracy. Since time immemorial, artists (especially musicians) have often invoked the First Amendment to use their artistic expression, music, and lyrics, as a powerful political tool. Their creativity communicates contrarian/suppressed ideas and emotions. Their output transcends conventional political platforms to become more mainstream and can play a significant role in bringing about social transformation and enlightenment by becoming rallying cries, flashpoints, or even social anthems. Typically, a government cannot directly ban or arrest an artist, deny space to air their creativity, or even insist that the same be more “patriotic” or “neutral.”
That sort of a thin-skinned reaction is only for “strongmen” who are inherently insecure, illiberal, and authoritarian (peddling intolerance as some sort of a “patriotic” duty). This political maturity has allowed artists like Neil Young, Lady Gaga, John Legend, Eminem, Rage against the machine et al, to posit a voice of alternate consciousness and civic duty, to the chagrin of the Donald Trump administration. Increasingly, the small-spirited Trump is doing everything in his power to diminish the sacred spirit of the First Amendment with indirect means of intimidation and coercive allusions.
But many brave Americans believe in the patriotic duty of dissenting with their government, as they know that a “voice” against the government is not the same as a “voice” against the nation, as there is a big difference in the two realms, and usurpation or conjoining of the same is extremely unhealthy in the long run. One artist who can claim to be the conscience keeper of generations and the “American Dream,” who often flits between patriotism and protest as a sacred covenant is the rock star Bruce Springsteen. A moral witness to the American life, the working-class hero routinely speaks about the “unseen” such as the check-out counter girl, coal miners, veterans, immigrants, outsiders etc.
His stories of hope and disillusionment have made him an integral cultural figure to the vital American Stories. His discography about working class dignity finds resonance in Factory, The River, Jack of all Trades etc.; for veterans and their trauma his anthems have included the likes of The Wall, Devil & Dust, Born in the USA etc.; for civil rights and immigration he has given The Ghost of Tom Joad, American Skin, Galveston Bay etc., and for democracy and its accompanying accountabilities he has sung Land of Hope and Dreams, Death to My Hometown, We Take Care of Our Own etc. Yet another proud American who felt honoured to bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Bruce Springsteen in 2016, Barack Obama, was to joke “I am the President, he is The Boss”! Obama noted, “For decades, Bruce Springsteen has brought us all along on a journey consumed with the bargains between ambition and injustice and pleasure and pain; the simple glories and scattered heartbreak of everyday life in America.”
Politically, Bruce could never be anything but an inclusivist, secular, constitutionalist, and liberal ~ basically, everything that is anathema to the mental construct of an exclusivist, supremacist, xenophobic and unconstitutionally-spirited Trump. Today, as Trump has initiated “Operation Metro Surge” (immigration enforcement) with ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) an intense controversy with multiple deaths and ham-handed handling has escalated to a societal flashpoint with social and psychological fear prevailing on streets. Community tensions and resilience have triggered mass protests and civic mobilization as Trump goes about the same insensitively and relentlessly. The time is ripe for the 76-year-old Springsteen to unleash his protest song “Streets of Minneapolis” in direct response to the unaccountable conduct of the ICE agents following the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good (ironically, both American citizens).
Bruce’s unsparingly brave lyrics go, “King Trump’s private army from the DHS/Guns belted to their coats/Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law ~ / Or so their story goes.” He adds: “And there were bloody footprints where mercy should have stood / And two dead left to die on snow‑filled streets / Alex Pretti and Renee Good.” It is a classic Springsteen style of moral outrage against everyday lives caught in larger social and partisan causes. As always, he blends his anger with empathy and alludes to missing dignity (a word that Trump seldom uses). The working-class hero amplifies the community voices against a dispensation with his protest anthem. It is very necessary to give abstract policy enforcement a human, tangible, and sensitive nuance, beyond the efforts of the dispensation of the day to shroud the same in some form of patriotic necessity, a “correcting history” agenda with fear mongering. Just as Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin’ helped define the 1960s cultural landscape, Streets of Minneapolis personifies the necessary voices of minorities and marginalized communities, and galvanises public action.
But such acts of heroic defiance come with a personal price that a true-blooded American like Springsteen is aware of, and willing to play in the winter of his life. But with their valiant and selfless act, artists like Springsteen do not just memorialize victims, but they also crucially hold the power-that-be to accountability ~ they do so by using their art and expression as a means of cultural storytelling and social influence by standing with their own and with their constitution. Like his powerful lyrics in Land of Hope and Dream he movingly says, “This train carries saints and sinners” whilst dreaming of an inclusive America. It takes guts to stand up to the likes of Trump in today’s America and Bruce Springsteen shows exactly why with his protest anthems he is called the “Boss”!
(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)