Runaway American Dreams

April 2, 2021 8:15 AM

"Bruce Springsteen is one of this country’s greatest living artists, one who built his success by enshrining the stories of the working-class lives of the people he grew up with in songs that have become foundational parts of the popular music canon. His commitment to seeking justice in the real world has made Springsteen a liberal hero and a cult figure to many on the left. What to make then of the recent news that he was releasing a podcast with Barack Obama, just weeks after appearing in a Super Bowl commercial urging Americans to find “the middle”?"
posted by latkes (30 comments total)

Bonus link: The queerness of Bruce Springsteen.
posted by latkes at 8:21 AM on April 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

Republicans have been portraying the popular programs of FDR-style New Deal democracy as "far left socialism" for almost a century now. If Springsteen pushes back by pointing out that what Democrats espouse actually is the political mainstream, then more power to him.
posted by Gelatin at 8:24 AM on April 2, 2021 [27 favorites]

He confirmed that while he’d campaigned for Obama in 2008, he wasn’t planning to do so in 2012. The President’s record was a mixed bag. Why, Springsteen asks throughout the record, did these bastards get bailed out? Wasn’t someone going to make them pay? Despite his protestation, he ultimately did campaign for Obama in 2012. Perhaps he got nervous after watching the debates. Perhaps, as a Guardian article from 2012 suggests, he was just scared of blowing his political capital too early.

Or maybe, in simpler terms:

Mark: OK, OK, so what's the point you're trying to make?
Sick Boy: All I'm trying to do, Mark, is help you understand that The Name of The Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
Mark: What about The Untouchables?
Sick Boy: I don't rate that at all.
Mark: Despite the Academy Award?
Sick Boy: That means fuck all. It's a sympathy vote.
Mark: Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it anymore. Is that it?
Sick Boy: Yeah.
Mark: That's your theory?
Sick Boy: Yeah. Beautifully fucking illustrated.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:36 AM on April 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

Ok great now wondering what kind of lyrics David Brooks would write if he fronted a band
posted by thelonius at 8:57 AM on April 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true/
Or is it something worse?
posted by chavenet at 9:01 AM on April 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

" in the real world has made Springsteen a liberal hero and a cult figure to many on the left"

In my world, liberals do not overlap completely with the left. In that political world, there is no head-scratching necessary. Springsteens a liberal. He's not a leftist.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:32 AM on April 2, 2021 [24 favorites]

Perhaps the window has shifted so far-right, that what Springsteen recently called the middle is what once used to be the left.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:33 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Obama is the middle.
posted by parmanparman at 9:36 AM on April 2, 2021 [8 favorites]

Springsteen's music has been more focused on identifying problems rather than diagnosing their causes. In addition, as he aged (and as his fans have aged), that moderation and protection of status means that the blue collar has been turned into aesthetic rather than a specific position in society. Springsteen has never and will never say we have to join a union, form a co-op, or overthrow capital. His music blames no one because he has more in common now with the people who would be blamed than those who are attacked.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 9:38 AM on April 2, 2021 [8 favorites]

Probably just the reading I’ve been doing lately, but the idea that a working class hero could identify with an icon of the professional managerial class suggests that one of them isn’t.
posted by mph at 10:49 AM on April 2, 2021 [5 favorites]

Springsteen is no leftist, but he is often quoted as saying “Unions have been the only powerful and effective voice working people have ever had in the history of this country.”
posted by lumpy at 11:11 AM on April 2, 2021 [11 favorites]

I mean, when Bruce was growing up union=good wasn't some leftist mantra it was the lived experience of many people. The demonization of unions has happpened over decades, making support for unions more aligned with the left than with liberals.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:16 AM on April 2, 2021 [16 favorites]

I just wanted to add that this podcast is actually worth listening to, if just for the episodes about fatherhood and masculinity. I mean, they’re not leftist heroes; I’m a bleeding heart dem socialist, but I appreciate what these guys are trying to say, especially for the people they’ll hopefully reach. It’s very cool to listen to two grown men who seem to have a mutual respect for each other talk about some topics which we're familiar with here, but I do have to occasionally remind myself that MeFi is not the mean.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 11:37 AM on April 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

His music blames no one because he has more in common now with the people who would be blamed than those who are attacked.

I'm sorry, but this is an imagined account of Springsteen's political story and statements, with little resemblance to what those have actually been.

As the linked piece notes, there are Springsteen songs from 2012 (when Springsteen had been immensely wealthy for more than 30 years, and was grossing an average of least a hundred million dollars a year) that literally blame stockmarket speculators for the last financial crisis and its impact on ordinary people: "Gambling man rolls the dice, working man pays the bill/It's still fat and easy up on banker's hill/Up on banker's hill the party's going strong/Down here below we're shackled and drawn" (Shackled and Drawn). If that's not an explicit enough for you, try Death to My Hometown: "Yeah, sing it hard and sing it well/Send the robber barons straight to hell/The greedy thieves who came around/And ate the flesh of everything they found/Whose crimes have gone unpunished now/Who walk the streets as free men now".

Springsteen has never and will never say we have to join a union

“Unions have been the only powerful and effective voice working people have ever had in the history of this country.” — Bruce Springsteen

Springsteen isn't a socialist. He's a social democrat*. But, at the moment, as the article points out, what he mainly is is an elderly man who is scared that his country is going to tear itself apart, and quite possibly end up permanently balkanised or under a right-wing authoritarian regime. These are reasonable fears, which he is (not entirely convincingly, and probably to little effect) trying to promote unity in order to allay. It's not selfish to be scared by the current polarisation of US politics, or a sign that someone's a sell out. It's a perfectly understandable perspective for someone on the left to hold.

We on the left need to spend more time listening to what people who almost entirely agree with us actually say and less time caricaturing each other as either zealots or sellouts because we differ about the best tactics to reach our common goals.

* I understand this (for every other democracy) mainstream political tradition has recently been rebranded in the US as "democratic socialism".
posted by howfar at 11:41 AM on April 2, 2021 [85 favorites]

Springsteen has never and will never say we have to join a union, form a co-op, or overthrow capital.

The union comment was addressed upstream.

As to his politics, American Skin (41 Shots) was first performed in 2000, about 15-20 years before police violence and murder protests went national.

At the time, he got a lot of criticism from white fans, particular those in police unions, but not only did he not retract the song or apologize for it, he kept performing it.

Like everyone, the guy has some faults, and we all get a bit softer as we age, but to claim that he doesn't hold leftist views is fairly ridiculous. Come on.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:55 AM on April 2, 2021 [20 favorites]

Re: "The queerness of Bruce Springsteen."

What a sweet essay.

Sometimes, when you learn something new about how wonderful people hear a song, you find a new respect for the singer. I won't hear Bruce in the same way after reading this.
posted by Twang at 11:55 AM on April 2, 2021 [6 favorites]

We on the left need to spend more time listening to what people who almost entirely agree with us actually say and less time caricaturing each other as either zealots or sellouts because we differ about the best tactics to reach our common goals.

thanks, howfar -- you said it better than I could, and with fewer words. If I've learned anything over the years, it's to beware of those who are convinced that their tactics are the one and only way.
posted by philip-random at 12:01 PM on April 2, 2021 [8 favorites]

From Slate: "Obama and Springsteen’s Podcast Isn’t What It Pretends to Be. The show promises difficult conversations about race, but it avoids the actual difficulties."
posted by PhineasGage at 12:51 PM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Believing that the “middle” is somewhere between the center-right corporate Democrats and the racist, increasingly openly fascist far-right Republicans is how Overton Windows get shifted towards oligarchy and fascism, and a basic part of the problem.

But what is Springsteen gonna do; sit down and podcast with the pro-insurrectionist Republicans who stand against everything he’s sung about since I’ve been alive?

The perfect is the enemy of the good.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:23 PM on April 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

First we re-establish that Nazis are not to be debated, they are to be punched and defeated.

First we jail the insurrectionists and fascists who conspired to overthrow our democracy, and which includes sitting Republican legislators, active duty and reserve military, and sworn peace officers.

First consequences for trying to destroy our democracy.

Until then, talk of “finding the middle” is literally trying to reason with those whose first act when they get into power will be to strip people’s rights.

Fuck that noise.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:30 PM on April 2, 2021 [15 favorites]

Under one year ago, in the wake of George Floyd's death and as the volcanic eruption of rage spread across the country, Springsteen two-hour E Street Radio broadcast reflected his views on political protest and racial injustice.

“As of today, our black citizens continue to be killed unnecessarily by our police on the streets of America. As of this broadcast, the country is on fire and in chaos. We remain haunted, generation after generation, by our original sin of slavery. It remains the great unresolved issue of American society. The weight of its baggage gets heavier with each passing generation. As of this violent, chaotic week on the streets of America, there is no end in sight.”

“We have not cared for our house very well,” he continued. “There can be no standing peace without the justice owed to every American regardless of their race, color or creed. The events of the last week have once again proved that idea. We need systemic changes in our law enforcement departments and the political will of our national citizenry to once again move forward the kind of changes that will bring the ideals of the civil rights movement once again to life and into this moment.”

“We have a choice between chaos or community, a spiritual, moral and democratic awakening or becoming a nation fallen to history as critical issues were refused or not addressed,” Springsteen said. “Is our American system flexible enough to make, without violence, the humane, fundamental changes necessary for a just society?”

Straightforward observations and positions not out of line with liberal or leftist ideologies followed by the recognition of our collective failure to adequately confront our most critical challenges and, finally, a searingly honest question that dares to confront the promise of American exceptionalism. Is this something we're still even capable of doing? Or might it require bloodshed? Or might that dream just wither and die?

He's 71. He's been at it a long time. And a year doesn't go by without some public debate over his bona fides. I'm reminded of Randy Newman's hysterical "My Life Is Good":
"And you know what he said to me? I'll tell you what he said to me. He said, Rand, I'm tired. How would you like to be the Boss for awhile?"
posted by thecincinnatikid at 2:00 PM on April 2, 2021 [17 favorites]

I'm a little at sea why I'm supposed to have strong feelings about a couple of rich but otherwise kinda-not-terrible guys making what sounds like a kinda-not-terrible podcast. If either of them are talking about hugging Nazis or whatever, it isn't in the article. AFAICT the author's beef is that the podcast falls inevitably short of the kind of expectations that such people inevitably fall short of. Which is too bad, I guess, but sounds like a "nothing you could do" situation, to quote the author quoting whatshisface.
posted by Not A Thing at 2:18 PM on April 2, 2021 [6 favorites]

First we jail the insurrectionists and fascists who conspired to overthrow our democracy, and which includes sitting Republican legislators, active duty and reserve military, and sworn peace officers.

First consequences for trying to destroy our democracy.

Until then, talk of “finding the middle” is literally trying to reason with those whose first act when they get into power will be to strip people’s rights.

I don't think it is. I think it's trying to appeal to certain idealistic sentiments about the nature of the American experience which resonate emotionally with many members of a group of ordinary people who, data strongly indicate, are significantly more sympathetic to many of the left's objectives than a simple review of voting patterns would suggest. Those people, the ones that many reasonable people on the left want to talk to (third party voters, floating voters, infrequent voters - in particular those who don't vote at midterms & in non-national elections, and even a small proportion of Republican voters) are not, almost by definition, fascists. And securing a sufficient portion of their votes might be crucial in democratically saving the United States of America, or certain portions of it, from far-right authoritarianism. And a shitload of those people listen to Bruce Springsteen.

The man isn't hugging Nazis or extending a bipartisan hand of friendship to Mitch McConnell, for goodness' sake: he's trying to use a TV commercial for his own transparent purpose of shifting public sentiments away from the radicalised right, and making a podcast with a former Democratic president.

And I'm sorry to be blunt, but you need a reality check. The things you say must happen before anyone should engage in attempts to talk across factional boundaries; those things are not going to happen. A few people will be punished to the extent the law prescribes, many more (particularly the powerful) will be allowed to slip past for political or systemic reasons, a few will probably (there being reasonable doubt after proper scrutiny) evade punishment in accordance with the law as it is intended to function. That's just the way it is. I'm not saying that's OK, but I am telling you that's what's going to happen.

(I also don't see why one would think "consequences" of this kind a necessary precursor for an apparently unconnected attempt at left-of-centre consensus building. It just seems arbitrary. I also think that many of the people who could potentially be drawn away from soft sympathy for the far right would interpret your comment in a way that would affirm the lies they've been told about "leftist fascism", so it may be worth considering whether it's a productive approach to finding a democratic resolution).
posted by howfar at 3:52 PM on April 2, 2021 [14 favorites]

I’m just about 50, and was raised as a hardcore evangelical conservative in Reagan’s America.

I started listening closely to Bruce in high school. The poor, struggling folks Bruce sang about on Nebraska were not the lazy welfare queens my parents would rant about. The were real people, doing their best with the hands they had been dealt. Bruce played a part in opening my eyes to the dark side of the American dream, and he surely did the same for many others.

Likewise, Obama’s intelligence, charisma, and compassion inspired me to become politically active for the first time in my life. As he did for many others too. Obama’s election and reelection are two of America’s proudest moments. I never thought the county I grew up in would elect a black president, and I’ve never been more happy to be proved wrong.

Now none of this means that these old, rich dudes are above criticism. And the podcast itself is pretty weak sauce. But Bruce and Barack have both been massive forces for good in the world. If they now truly represent “the middle,” I’d be thrilled if the right wing would meet us there.
posted by lumpy at 4:06 PM on April 2, 2021 [15 favorites]

So, I've been listening to this podcast for the past month and it's pretty sweet. The bromance vibe is strong, and their affection for each other seems genuine. There's a lot of reminiscing about being Famous People who do Big Deal Things, so if that sort of stuff makes you roll your eyes, I get it. I also only have so much capacity to hear about two dudes talking about fun parties that I will never get a chance to attend. I come to this show in fits and starts because I have to be in a certain mood for this sort of solipsism. But as someone else mentioned above, they do talk about what it was like growing up in America and a lot of baggage that men saddle on each other. And, yes, they are not the only men the who talk about toxic masculinity or have learned to share their feelings. But they are two famous men who have a wide audience that isn't necessarily woke, so if this podcast opens up a few eyes about structural misogyny or racism or chronic male irresponsibility then good for them.

No this isn't a show that's going to call for revolution in our time. It's two sixty plus year old bros looking back on life and trying to share some lessons hoping the rest of us draw our own conclusions and that's all it's going to be. If you don't have time for that then that's you. But I wouldn't snub someone else who listened in and found a new way to look at the world or their idols
posted by bl1nk at 5:07 PM on April 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

At the same time, Eriksen faults Springsteen for what he sees as a failure to transcend the limitations of his own knowledge: he ought to connect personal experiences of alienation and domination to an explicitly anticapitalist analysis that lays the blame for these struggles at the feet of the economic system and its imperialist overlords.

you can't fit that in a 3 minute rock and roll song

but have some henry cow if you want marxist lyrics
posted by pyramid termite at 5:51 PM on April 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

They sucked his brains out!: "The union comment was addressed upstream. "

A-and downstream....

And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
posted by chavenet at 12:17 PM on April 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is like if a death metal magazine panned Springsteen for being bad at death metal.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 2:03 PM on April 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

Bruce isn’t going to pass a lot of leftist’s muster, which is unfortunate. As many have pointed out, he’s got a lot to offer, a lot to say.

One of my favorite tracks of his is Land of Hope and Dreams, a big arena-filling song, a set ender. “This train carries saints and sinners, this train carries losers and winners.” I read it as a response to Woodie Guthrie’s This Train is Bound For Glory, which lists all the kinds of people who are NOT bound for glory — gamblers, liars, thieves, rustlers, smokers. In Bruce’s vision we all are on the train, all headed to a beautiful world. It leaves unanswered what that world looks like, but says unequivocally that we are all worthy.

I”m not going to claim that Bruce himself is an abolitionist, tho he might be. But goddamn the vision in the song chimes. A world for everyone remains a radical idea, and a leftist idea.
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:53 AM on April 4, 2021 [5 favorites]

This is like if a death metal magazine panned Springsteen for being bad at death metal.

More like Pitchfork reviewing music for blue collar workers. Not really its oeuvre.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:47 PM on April 4, 2021