National Post (National Edition)
The Boss fears the boss
BRUCE ON TRUMP
Bruce Springsteen is no fan of president-elect Donald Trump’s, and made his “disgust” clear on the latest episode of comedian Marc Maron’s WTF podcast this week.
When Maron asked if the current political climate has lent itself to new material for Springsteen, the crooner said, “I haven’t written about it. It takes a while to digest all those things. I don’t know if I will, ‘cause, I don’t go, “OK, I need a Trump album. That’s what’s got to come next.’”
“Sometimes it ends up being topical. Sometimes it doesn’t,” he continued. “But we’ve got a good arsenal of material right now, that we can go out and sort of put in service.”
But that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t on his mind, Springsteen said, sharing his concerns.
“I’ve felt disgust before, but never the kind of fear that you feel now,” he said. “It’s as simple as the fear of, is someone simply competent enough to do this particular job? Do they simply have the pure competence to be put in the position of such responsibility?”
His biggest worry? That the “worst aspects that (Trump) appealed to come to fruition.”
“When you let that genie out of the bottle — bigotry, racism, intolerance — they don’t go back in the bottle that easily if they go back in at all,” Springsteen said. “Whether it’s a rise in hate crimes, people feeling they have licence to speak and behave in ways that previously were considered un-American and are un-American. That’s what he’s appealing to. My fears are that those things find a place in ordinary, civil society and the country changes in a way that is unrecognizable, and we become estranged. You say, ‘Hey, well, wait a minute, you voted for Trump? I thought I knew who you were’ … you feel very estranged from your country.”
“There’s plenty of good, solid folks that voted for Donald Trump,” he said, “as well as people who had other agendas.”
And when it comes to Trump’s Cabinet, Springsteen added, “that doesn’t speak very well for what’s coming up.”
But, he said, “America is still America. I still believe in its ideals, and I’m going to do my best to play my very, very small part in maintaining those things.”
This isn’t the first time Springsteen has spoken out about Trump. In September, he said to Rolling Stone that Trump is a “moron” and declared him a “tragedy for our democracy.”
And in October, the singer referred to the presidentelect as a “toxic narcissist” to Channel 4 News, adding, “I think he’s going to make as big a mess as he can, and I don’t know what that’s going to mean, but we’ll find out shortly.”