Trump’s America vs. Springsteen’s: I Know Which Is the “Real America”

While the president is crashing out over his concert cancellations, The Boss is rallying the majority.

So now Donald Trump wants to cancel his “Freedom 250” concerts. Musical artists, who were obviously lied to by Trump adjutants when convinced to agree to perform, have spent the last few days not only backing out of the shows but going out of their way to emphasize that they were misled about the nature and true purpose of the events. Trump, in his churlish and childish way, said on Saturday he didn’t want these crybabies (“overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain”) singing at his rallies anyway.

Meanwhile, last Wednesday, Bruce Springsteen played a sold-out show in Washington’s Nationals Park (around 41,000 people) for his “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour. As you’ve no doubt heard, he opened the show—and he seems to be opening every date on the tour—with a sermonette about the “reckless, racist, incompetent, treasonous” occupant of the White House before he launched into a cover of Edwin Starr’s 1970 chart-topping hit “War.”

So, fate having handed us an interesting and useful juxtaposition here, it seems on point to ask: Which of these events represents this country’s better self? Okay, it’s obvious that I’m going to answer that by saying Springsteen. But there’s more to the answer. The moment gives us the opportunity to reflect on assumptions the media makes about who is a “real” American: how wrong those assumptions are, how those assumptions have helped elevate and legitimize Trump, and how they distort our political........

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