The recent turn of political events marks a sad day, not just for the USA but for the world upon which it holds an admittedly embarrassingly strong influence. Every young person in every generation yearns, either inwardly or outwardly for some brand of revolution, so the greatest tragedy to us all is to see it in inverse. Instead of the passionately coveted step forward into a better world, what we have been presented with is a harrowing retreat into the dark—a place of cowardice and ignorance that has managed once more to keep its talons deep in its inhabitants.
So how did this come to be? What more can be attributed to the enduring success of this chief coward, aside from the blatant misogyny and racism of a nation, than the fact that in this age of political cults, snapping and snarling nobody is listening to a word that is being said?
For me, a hard hitting agent to the reaching of this conclusion was a couple weeks ago, when I read that the family of the late political singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen had to come forward with a statement following the use of his song Hallelujah in multiple Trump rallies across America. It seems that the song, written explicitly about understanding, had been taken for some Christian anthem to be blared to accompany vile words of hatred and ignorance.
The Leonard Cohen foundation stated that they are, immaculately unsurprisingly, in no way in support of or affiliated with Donald Trump and his policies. The whole ordeal stands as a testament to how willing people are to take any sort of statement at face value, and how receptive an entire generation remains to appeasing buzz words. Like vultures, they pick what pleases them from a person or policy and leave the rest of the mangled carcass to fester and wither away in the heat, void of any and all intended meaning.
Take, for example, the enduringly relevant and undeniably political works of America’s own pride and joy, Bob Dylan. Famously anti-authority, and one of the first white American folk artists to speak out about racial segregation and meaningless war, Dylan’s career and legacy was built in—yet is not limited to—the nineteen sixties, a time of mass political and social change in both Britain and the UK. Furthermore, he became the first American to win a Nobel Prize, as well as the first songwriter to win the prize for literature.
Notably, in a strange parallel, this happened in 2016, when at a similar time, Trump was just on the cusp of victory in his first success in the presidential election.
There is definite argument for the claim that Dylan is a true red, white and blue blooded American. What could be more American than the rags-to-riches story of the small town Minnesotan folk singer armed with an average ability on the guitar and a questionable set of vocals that would come to be a household name, a pioneer in both literature and music and, in layman’s terms, a superstar?
So naturally, a great deal of the patriots that show their love for their country through a ballot for Trump grasp to claim him as ‘one of theirs.'
Dylan’s song ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ has been repackaged and repurposed for all and every revolution, but most unfittingly, akin to the aforementioned ‘Hallelujah’, in the Trump campaign. There are reports of it being played after Trump speeches and during Trump riots and rallies, and it is quoted and misquoted all over the internet by clueless fans and voters.
I understand and appreciate that once art is created and released into the world, it belongs to the public, to use and interpret as they like, yet it seems like offensive stupidity at best and heresy on a personal level to hear a song written specifically and objectively about social and political change used to promote a character who advocates for the entire opposite of change. A man whose campaign is built upon reverting a nation backwards and undoing change. It is no longer a case of careful interpretation. It is just a case of listening.
What conclusion can be given as a consolation to all of this? Where do we go forward from such a disappointing display of the people that we share earth with? Perhaps all that there really is to cling to is that these anthems of change are still being played.
Time moves in one way only, forward, and cannot be reversed even by the millions, the nation, who claim it and its works to be the enemy. Change will continue to occur, however stayed by who holds power, and to try and prevent that is a laughable and doomed endeavour. We were never great, any greatness we hope to achieve lies in the inescapable future.
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