Aging rocker and longtime Democratic Party mouthpiece Bruce Springsteen delivered a splenetic tirade against Donald Trump on Wednesday night, opening his “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour in Manchester, England, by attacking the Republican president’s “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”
The E Street Band leader introduced the song that gives the tour its name by saying: “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!”
Later, introducing House of a Thousand Guitars, the perennial Trump critic said: “The last check, the last check on power after the checks and balances of government have failed are the people, you and me. It’s in the union of people around a common set of values now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. So at the end of the day, all we’ve got is each other.”
The 75-year-old then delivered yet another spittle-flecked tirade to introduce the song My City of Ruins, saying:
There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.
In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.
In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.
They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just and plural society.
They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands.
They are removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centres and prisons. This is all happening now.
A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American.
The America l’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real and regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people. So we’ll survive this moment. Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, ‘In this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.’ Let’s pray.
Springsteen has a storied history of attacking Donald Trump and the Republican Party itself, as Breitbart News has long reported.
As far back as 2016, Springsteen sneered at the then-candidate as representing an “attack on the entire Democratic process” and adding he believed Trump has “no sense of decency.”
In 2017 he labelled Trump as a “con man” and called his administration “crooks” in a protest song he released.
In the same year he called Trump a “moron” in an interview with Rolling Stone and two years alter delivered more abuse.
During the 2019 presidential race, Springsteen repeatedly bad-mouthed Trump, at one point declaring he would leave the country if Trump were to be re-elected.
The rocker also teamed up with left-wing activist and novelist Don Winslow on a viral video that used the discredited “suckers” and “losers” story from The Atlantic to smear Trump.
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