And we have no one to blame but ourselves. J. P. Jefferson suggested this opinion piece on December 19, 2023. I just ran across J. P. Jefferson’s recommendation again or for the first time, sigh. I just do not remember. I was able to sign into this WSJ Kevin Williamson piece even though I do not have a paid subscription. Sometimes and when you create a logon, they let you have so many freebies per month. Hoping you will subscribe to their journals, etc. Only going to post the beginning few paragraphs. Try the create a sign in for the rest of it. A few more words to be said. Politicians incorrectly using Yellen, Guthrie, Greenwood, or Springstein’s music and words to fan political support or bad times is just wrong headed. It is a
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and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
J. P. Jefferson suggested this opinion piece on December 19, 2023. I just ran across J. P. Jefferson’s recommendation again or for the first time, sigh. I just do not remember. I was able to sign into this WSJ Kevin Williamson piece even though I do not have a paid subscription. Sometimes and when you create a logon, they let you have so many freebies per month. Hoping you will subscribe to their journals, etc.
Only going to post the beginning few paragraphs. Try the create a sign in for the rest of it.
A few more words to be said. Politicians incorrectly using Yellen, Guthrie, Greenwood, or Springstein’s music and words to fan political support or bad times is just wrong headed. It is a misinterpretation.
Most of the politicians do not understand what the words portend. Not sure why Roosevelt felt “Happy Days are Here Again” was the right song for the time during a recession and the hints of a war. Maybe just give hope?
Read Kevin D. Williamson words on the topic. If you can get the rest of the WSJ article, great!
Election 2024: You Asked for It, America, WSJ, Kevin D. Williamson
The problem with campaign rally songs is that nobody ever picks the right one. Franklin Roosevelt chose “Happy Days Are Here Again” in the middle of the Great Depression with Adolf Hitler rising to power in Germany. Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” has charmed Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, none of whom apparently ever actually listened to the lyrics of that lament for post-Vietnam malaise and economic decline. George H.W. Bush used Woody Guthrie’s pinko anthem
“This Land Is Your Land.”
Lately, Trump has been using Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.,” a diabetes-inducing hunk of treacle that makes me want to join the Islamic State, while Joe Biden has gone back to the Guthrie well with a version of “Shipping Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys, a band that, like Joe Biden, is still getting by playing hits from the 1990s.
I have my own theme song for the 2024 election, David Bowie’s magnificent 1995 collaboration with Brian Eno:
“I’m Afraid of Americans.”
It is an anthem for our times.
Presidential elections are almost always showy, nationalistic affairs, full of appeals to patriotism and unity, occasions upon which even Ivy League diversity officers wave the flag and festoon the public square in red, white and blue. And that points to the tension at the heart of the dreadful and contemptible 2024 presidential election, which almost certainly will be fought out by Donald Trump, a depraved game-show host who tried to stage a coup d’état when he lost his 2020 re-election bid, and Joe Biden, a plagiarist and fabulist first elected to public office 53 years ago who is going to be spending a lot of time this campaign season thinking about his family’s influence-peddling business and the tricky questions related to it, like whether you can deduct hookers as a business expense.