Bruce Springsteen Is Bringing the Cavalry

Nearly a quarter century ago, in the second year of George W. Bush’s miserable presidency, a campaign was launched to nominate Bruce Springsteen as the candidate for one of New Jersey’s U.S. Senate seats. Polls showed that Springsteen would be a viable candidate, and volunteers were ready to circulate petitions, put his name on the ballot, and send the boss to Washington.

But the musician thwarted this campaign by announcing: “If I am nominated, I will not run. If I am elected, I will not serve.”

This ended the 2002 attempt to drag the boss into electoral politics. But Springsteen hasn’t relegated himself to the political fringes. Since then, he has been one of the biggest defenders of Democratic presidential candidates, from John Kerry to Barack Obama to Kamala Harris. And Springsteen’s songs over the past few decades have maintained his career-long commitment to addressing the fundamental issues of our time, with impassioned lyrics about everything from the failed response to Hurricane Katrina (“We Take Care of Our Own”) to the economic pain that looms after deindustrialization (“Death to My Hometown”).

Donald Trump’s second presidential term made Springsteen more outspoken than ever and gave his interventions a new urgency. He has often proven to be a more lucid and forceful critic of the president’s dangerous abuses of power than Democratic Party leaders who are expected to lead an opposition party.

The rocker now hits the road for the Land of Hopes and Dreams US tour, which will likely be the most politically charged show of his 50-year career.

Although Springsteen says nothing about the purpose of the tour he will launch on March 31, the program sends an explicit message. The tour begins in Minneapolis, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed poet and mother Renee Good before Customs and Border Protection agents shot and killed intensive care nurse Alex Pretti. (Springsteen responded in January to the deadly violence of ICE’s arrival in Minnesota with the hit song “Streets of Minneapolis,” which is sure to feature in his shows.) The tour’s next stops will be in Portland and Los Angeles, two other communities that have been targeted by waves of armed, masked agents from Secretary Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security.

But Springsteen East say something. Leaning against a parked car in a video posted this week, Springsteen announced the tour with a resounding call to action:

“Brothers and sisters, fans, friends and good people from coast to coast. We live in dark, worrying and dangerous times, but do not despair: the cavalry is coming! Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will take the stage this spring from Minneapolis to California to Texas to Washington, DC, on the Land of Hope and Dreams U.S. Tour. We will rock your city to celebrate and defend America – American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution and our American dream sacred – all of which are under attack from our wannabe king and his rogue government in Washington, DC Everyone, regardless of your position or what you believe in, is welcome – so come join the United Free Republic of E Street Nation for an American Spring of Rock ‘n’ Rebellion, I’ll see you there!

Springsteen has long written about Americans’ anguish and abandonment in difficult times, once explaining: “There is no help, the cavalry has stayed at home. No one hears the bugle sound.
We take care of our own…” But this time he said: “Don’t despair, the cavalry is coming!” » and he takes her to Washington, where the tour will end on May 27 with a huge open-air concert at Nationals Park.

That doesn’t sit well with the Trump White House, which issued a statement suggesting that “that loser Springsteen’s” tour would achieve nothing. But Springsteen fans who know a thing or two about politics were convinced the Boss would draw crowds — for his music and his politics.

Predicting that Springsteen would bring “a rock-and-roll exorcism to Washington, D.C.,” U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said, “America doesn’t have kings, but we have a boss and his name is Bruce Springsteen. Unlike our false king, the boss fights for freedom and democracy for everyone. I can’t wait to hear him sing ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ loud enough to shake the walls of what’s left of the White House.”

U.S. Rep. Bob Menendez, a Democrat who represents Springsteen’s native New Jersey, announced simply: “An American Spring of Rock ‘n’ Rebellion is what the country needs right now and I’m here for it.” »