Republican New Jersey governor Christ Christie has been to twenty-nine Springsteen concerts.
Bruce Springsteen’s oft-revisited themes of hard work, faith, and America, are all things wingnuts think that they love, but then The Boss reminds everyone that he supports unions and peace and is a passionate advocate for the rights of the disenfranchised, and they just don’t understand how he could think those things when he seems to start from the same place that they do. So, they usually just say he became a politically correct Hollyweird liberal once he got rich and famous, and that he hasn’t been relevant since the 1970’s (when he was still Real). Because, after all, it isn’t difficult for these barely-sentient balls of rage to distort their own perceptions of reality.
As one of the most misinterpreted songs ever, the song’s become a de facto feel-good election season anthem for politicians nationwide. The patriotic rallying-cry of a cold warrior was invoked by Ronald Raygun, campaigning in 1984. Except of course, it wasn’t exactly the “idealism and optimism” that the Reagan campaign was searching for.
In a 2005 interview with National Public Radio. Said Bruce:
“This was when the Republicans first mastered the art of co-opting anything and everything that seemed fundamentally American, and if you were on the other side, you were somehow unpatriotic. I make American music, and I write about the place I live and who I am in my lifetime. Those are the things I’m going to struggle for and fight for.”
I remember when “Born in the USA” came out, and it was cathartic for veterans at a time when Vietnam still couldn’t be mentioned, and vets were getting the shaft both from the left and the right. And then Bruce came along. And at first, all the wingnuts were pretty darn sure he was a Rightwing Patriot Hero, because, American Flag! Blue Jeans! Vets! And then he wasn’t, and they could not figure out how a guy could write an anthem for war veterans and not be all rah rah yay yahoo War! It took them forever to finally wrap their tiny little craniums around that one.
Except the vets. The vets always understood.