The Boss Has A Lot To Say About The USA

Many people, even the President of the United States, misread Bruce Springsteen’s most iconic tune.

“Born in the U.S.A.” wasn’t a rah-rah anthem but a Vietnam War smackdown.

No one is misreading The Boss’ political leanings today. Springsteen’s European tour finds the rocker trashing President Donald Trump like a Stephen Colbert monologue.

There’s only one problem. Springsteen squandered his moral authority over the past decade, and it’s not coming back. He’s far from alone in hard-rock circles.

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Springsteen made waves with his recent on-stage Trump tirade, a May 14 rant that swiftly went viral. So much for Norms – bashing America overseas is typically frowned upon.

In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration. Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!

The comments came during the media maelstrom regarding Trump’s predecessor, the 80-something president whose cognitive decline made him woefully unfit for the gig.

Yet Springsteen didn’t say a word, at least publicly, about President Joe Biden’s mental state. The Boss supported Biden’s 2020 presidential run and similarly backed Vice President Kamala Harris last year. The rock icon kept mum about what every fair-thinking American saw over the last four years.

Gaffe after gaffe. Video after video. The sad proof was there before our collective eyes.

Nor did he condemn Harris for hiding Biden’s mental fog. She worked side-by-side with Biden and sang from the “Sharp as a Tack” hymnal, yet Springsteen never pressed her on the matter in song or on a concert stage.

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His silence wasn’t isolated to that terrible issue. Springsteen stayed mum during the Twitter Files scandal, Team Biden’s attempts to curb pandemic critics and Cancel Culture’s impact on the First Amendment.

He didn’t speak up for author Jeanine Cummins, aggressively canceled for writing a book (“American Dirt”) from a different culture than her own. The Boss didn’t rage against sensitivity readers or the scolds who censored books by literary giants like Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie.

You’d think an artist of his caliber would have had their backs, even if they worked in different media. Not Springsteen.

A true blue-collar troubadour wouldn’t let partisanship get in the way of the truth. Heck, the old Springsteen might have penned an ode to Laken Riley, the young woman killed by an illegal immigrant in 2024.

This version? Not a chance.

The New Jersey legend refused to stand up to longtime fans alarmed at his sky-high ticket prices. He put his blue collar bona fides on a shelf and said he was worth the price of admission.

Some Everyman.

Recently, two well-known rockers rode to Springsteen’s defense. Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder has backed The Boss on stage, covering the singer’s “My City of Ruins” and blasting Trump from his concert soap box.

Part of free speech is open discussion, part of democracy is healthy public discourse. The name calling is so beneath us. Bruce has always been a true American with his values of freedom and liberty and his justice has always remained intact…This freedom to speak will still exist in another year or two when we come back to this microphone.

Like Springsteen, Vedder stood down during the relentless attacks on free speech over the past decade. He said nothing about Cancel Culture, of fellow artists forced to grovel for forgiveness for past jokes and comments.

Nothing.

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That goes double for Tom Morello. The Rage Against the Machine singer joined his fellow, far-Left rockers in blasting Trump and backing The Boss.

Bruce is going after Trump because Bruce, his whole life, he’s been about truth, justice, democracy, equality … And Trump is mad at him because Bruce draws a bigger audience. F— that guy!

And let’s not forget their collective silence on one of the biggest news stories of the past decade. Neither Springsteen, Vedder or Morello publicly spoke out against the Oct. 7 atrocities, the ongoing hostage crisis or the 2023 Nova Music Festival massacre.

The latter should have been a moment for musicians from all genres to sing in one voice against an attack that hit so close to home. U2’s Bono briefly spoke out against the Nova massacre, as did Madonna.

The aforementioned rockers stayed silent.

And where are the pleas for Hamas to release the hostages held captive for more than a year? How hard is it to share that message?

John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting fame has just done that, almost nonstop, since Oct. 7. He’s put politics aside to pen songs tied to the Ukraine War, the Hamas barbarism and more.

His chilling anthem “OK (We Are Not OK),” a reaction to the Oct. 7 atrocities, is a must listen.

We may disagree on the power of celebrity messaging, but Ondrasik’s moral authority remains strong. What a shame Springsteen and friends can’t say the same.

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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.