Activism
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April 29, 2025
Trump supporters might imagine they’re hardcore, however they appear to be afraid of op-eds, books, and historical past they’ll’t even bear to learn.
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Tom Morello and Zach de la Rocha of Rage Towards the Machine carry out as a part of a free live performance at Finsbury Park on June 6, 2010, in London, England.(Christie Goodwin / Getty Pictures)
I noticed Rage Towards the Machine in live performance at a packed Capitol One area in Washington, DC, in 2022. Lead singer Zack de la Rocha carried out the present in a wheelchair, as a result of he’d shattered his ankle on stage throughout their final cease. He was unimaginable, hitting each word from the seated place. Tom Morello was inventing new sounds on his guitar, and on a darkish stage beneath a highlight, bassist Tim Commerford had a mind-boggling solo.
There was additionally a middle-aged muscle-head with a pink MAGA hat sitting two rows in entrance of us. I used to be transfixed. He would leap up and down shouting together with lyrics like, “Fuck you, I gained’t do what you inform me!” However when 20,000 folks chanted, “A few of those who work forces / are the identical that burn crosses,” he acquired sullen and looked for folks to battle. In the meantime, the girl he was with took out her telephone, apparently attempting to seize a viral video of him being MAGA-tough. I puzzled if he wished to knock certainly one of us out for the digicam just like the black-bloc child did a couple of years earlier to the neo-Nazi Richard Spencer.
I may see how furious MAGA-man was when Zack shouted out the names, accompanied by a slideshow picture tribute, of the Black individuals who had been killed by the native police over the past 12 months. This was one thing Rage had been doing in each metropolis the place they’d performed a present. Then this ball of aggro stuffed right into a too-tight T-shirt acquired actually mad when the band took a brief medical intermission, so Zack may attend to his leg. (I’m nonetheless unsure how Zack managed this present.) Throughout the break, Rage confirmed a slow-motion movie of a police van burning whereas some younger Black youngsters simply slowly rode their bikes round it.
In his personal type of rage, the MAGA man stored on the lookout for folks to battle, however we both ignored him or shouted lyrics in his route and pointed. This made him angrier, and his face quickly matched his silly pink hat. Even worse, his particular woman buddy wasn’t getting any good content material for her Instagram web page! When the present ended, he began yelling, “Who threw that at me? I’ll fuck you up!” (I suppose somebody threw one thing at him.) I used to be fed up and mentioned one thing to the impact of, “Shut the fuck up. Nobody threw shit at you. Go residence!” He was going to step to me, however then he observed I used to be with a big buddy who was staring daggers at him, and he did certainly shut up and left the live performance seething. He’d had a horrible time with no viral video content material to point out for it.
This all got here again to me with power once I noticed a comedic headline that learn, “Proper-Wing Rage Towards the Machine Fan Needs We May Go Again to the America That Existed When He Was Too Silly to Perceive the Lyrics.” These assholes prefer to say issues like, “MAGA is the brand new punk rock,” however there’s nothing rebellious about them. They’re reactionaries. They’re terrified of op-eds, speeches, and petitions. They’re terrified of books. They wish to erase historical past that they’ll’t bear to learn. They’re the machine that Zack, Tom, Tim, and drummer Brad Wilk are raging towards. So long as their 78-year-old dictator daddy and his autocratic state brutalize the folks they need brutalized and silence the folks they need silenced, they are going to be comfortable irrespective of the value of eggs. They’re as punk rock as Stephen Miller’s spray-on hairline or Kristi Noem’s Rolex that she wears for slave-labor camp photo-ops. They’re as punk rock as a recalled Tesla truck.
There’s a purpose younger folks, particularly younger girls, are studying to detest Trump. His help amongst Zoomers has dropped precipitously in his first 100 days. Younger folks rightly see a despot who, alongside the richest folks on earth, is strip-mining their current and promoting off, if not destroying, their future. Trump definitely does rage—but it surely’s simply towards the elements of the “machine” that fund efforts to remedy most cancers, save our Nationwide Parks, and ship packages to survivors of gender violence. However he loves the machine that may ban books, override due course of, arrest judges, abduct college students, fund El Salvadoran labor camps, and invade Greenland. He loves the a part of the machine that delivers violence towards the folks of his selecting. This, nonetheless, is the a part of the machine that Rage desires to smash.
I used to be additionally reminded that MAGA can’t declare punk rock—or any type of actually rebellious music. Its supporters might pump iron to Tom Morello’s guitar, however, just like the snowflakes they’re, they’ll’t settle for that Tom has devoted his life attempting to dismantle every little thing they so proudly signify. They could love Zack’s primal scream, however not after they understand he’s screaming at them. Rage Towards the Machine stands with Mumia. MAGA quislings stand with Mumia’s tormentors. Rage Towards the Machine is ours. And these Planet Health fascists can take heed to Child Rock on repeat and shut up.
The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows every week.
Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world financial system and arrange yet one more constitutional disaster at residence. Plainclothes officers proceed to abduct college college students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown overseas to a mega jail towards the orders of the courts. And Signalgate guarantees to be the primary of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence on the core of the American empire.
At a time when elite universities, highly effective regulation corporations, and influential media retailers are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation, The Nation is extra decided than ever earlier than to carry the highly effective to account.
In simply the final month, we’ve printed reporting on how Trump outsources his mass deportation agenda to different nations, uncovered the administration’s attraction to obscure legal guidelines to hold out its repressive agenda, and amplified the voices of courageous pupil activists focused by universities.
We additionally proceed to inform the tales of those that battle again towards Trump and Musk, whether or not on the streets in rising protest actions, on the town halls throughout the nation, or in essential state elections—like Wisconsin’s current state Supreme Courtroom race—that present a mannequin for resisting Trumpism and show that Musk can’t purchase our democracy.
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In solidarity,
The Editors
The Nation
Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is the sports activities editor at The Nation. He’s the writer of 11 books on the politics of sports activities. He’s additionally the coproducer and author of the brand new documentary Behind the Defend: The Energy and Politics of the NFL.
