"Hardcore Punk in the Age of Reagan" Author Reflects on Trump's Return
Here we go again
On the morning of November 6, I woke up early in a Helsinki hotel room, apprehensive yet energized by what the day had in store. The vote was in. Trump won.
Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised. Admittedly, I was kind of excited, but not for the same reasons the more than 76 million Americans who voted for him were.
I was in Finland to guest lecture at the University of Helsinki and discuss my upcoming book (Hardcore Punk in the Age of Reagan: The Lyrical Lashing of an American Presidency) at the city’s Punkmuseo. I study punk music — particularly the lyrics of hardcore bands from the 1980s — and whatever inspiration I got from the news concerning a second Trump presidency stemmed from this fact alone.
Like Reagan before him — the first president to witness a torrent of verbal abuse from punks — Trump had been a polarizing yet inspirational figure during his first tenure of office. On my walk along Mannerheimintie that morning, all I could think about was whether punks would respond with the same level of rage they had in 2016.
When he was first elected in 1980, Reagan immediately became the musical mark for disaffected youth who were frustrated with their monotonous suburban lives and fearful that the end of the world was just a button push away. In fact, so many bands aimed their lyrics directly at the 40th president that New Jersey’s Chronic Sick parodied the phenomenon with their 1983 single “Reagan Bands.”
Among these was the aptly named Reagan Youth, a band whose formation was inspired by their namesake’s election and who would remain together only through his time in the White House. Like D.I.’s “Reagan Der Fuhrer” and Teenage Depression’s “Reagan’s Gestapo”, their song “Reagan Youth” was one of the many that made juxtaposing the rule of Reagan with Nazism common among bands of that era, a tactic that would not be saved for him alone.
Throughout his two terms in office, Reagan’s name landed in more song titles than can be listed here. Bands in cities and towns across the country (and the world, for that matter) wrote tracks like “Reagan’s War” (Demented Youth), “Reagan’s War Puppets” (The Accüsed), “Reagan Gun Club” (Social Spit), “Reaganomics” (DRI), “Raygunomics” (Agent 86) and “Reaganomix” (Beefeater). Punk rock’s perception of the Reagan Revolution also popped up in “If Reagan Played Disco” (The Minutemen), “Reagan’s In” (Wasted Youth"), and “Bye Bye Ronnie” (MDC).
Other groups were far more forthcoming, holding nothing back with titles like “Reagan Sucks” (Bum Kon), “Reaganomics Fuck Off” (The Accelerators) and “Fuck, Shit, I Hate Reagan” (Pagan Faith). A few even alluded to John Warnock Hinckley Jr.’s assassination attempt on March 30, 1981, including Suicidal Tendencies (“I Shot the Devil,” which begins with the line “I shot Reagan!”) and The Crucifucks (“Hinkley Had a Vision”).
In the lyrics of songs such as these, Reagan was subjected to a grassroots, real-time, artistic outpouring of criticism few other presidents before him could claim. And he opened the door for those that followed — particularly George W. Bush, who would have his name used by bands like Wartorn (“Adolf Bushler”), The Brainwashed (“Kill George Bush”), and Environmental Youth Crunch (“George W. Shitbag” from their EP We Live to Smash the Family of Bush).
While George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barrack Obama also received some attention from punk bands, their detractors were minimal compared to who came after. Emerging from a field of 16 Republican candidates in 2016 — engaging in what New York Magazine columnist Frank Rich called the “quadrennial tug-of-war to seize the mantle of Ronald Reagan” — Donald Trump provided his critics with plenty to sing about during his first term.
From the moment he first became the Republican nominee through the election of 2020, Trump witnessed an abundance of abuse from punk bands, some of whom had cut their teeth when Reagan was in the White House.
MDC — still fronted after 35 years by Dave Dictor — released Mein Trumpf in 2017 with a reboot of 1981’s “Born to Die.” Its lyrics were simply changed from “No War, No KKK, No Fascist USA” to “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA,” a chant used by anti-Trumpers at rallies and concerts throughout his tenure. They also repackaged their farewell homage to Reagan as “Bye Bye Donny” a few years later, similar to their Canadian counterparts D.O.A. Around since 1978, they turned their “Fucked Up Ronnie” into “Fucked Up Donald,” just one of the songs on 2020’s Treason, a firm expression of D.O.A.’s opposition to the Trump presidency.
Former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, backed by the Guantanamo School of Medicine since the Obama years (and one of the few who had actually critiqued his presidency with 2012’s “Barackstar O’Bummer”), joined in the fun releasing Tea Party Revenge Porn, with “Satan’s Combover” as the opening track.
Less lyrically direct than the other Reagan Era bands, punk rock stalwarts Bad Religion recorded Age of Unreason near the end of his term, with guitarist and Epitaph owner Brett Gurewitz telling LA Weekly prior to its release, “we should have an album’s worth of ‘Fuck Trump’ songs pretty soon.”
Fellow Californians and labelmates the Descendents would also get in on the action with Suffrage, a two-track single released right before the election that informed voters “hashtag maga-maga, what a fucking joke!” on “Hindsight 2020”.
While Donald Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again” resonated with enough Americans to win him the presidency in 2016, it also fostered a sense of discontent that had not seen the lyrical light of day since the presidency of the man he had pilfered this slogan from.
In the wake of Trump’s first election, The Guardian ran an article with the headline “Rise Above: Will Donald Trump’s America Trigger a Punk Protest?” Drawing a direct connection between the two presidents, Jon Bernstein wrote, “The similarities between Reagan and Trump have left some wondering if the next few years of underground rock music may bear any resemblance to the wave of independent-spirited, politically conscious rock that arose during the Reagan years.”
\While what happened in the 1980s may never happen again, there was definitely a resemblance. Numerous Trump-inspired songs were written between 2016 and 2020, all with familiar punk pronouncements. Songs like “Trump Is a Nazi” (Candy Warpop), “Donald Trump Is a Nazi” (Sister Munch) and “Donald Trump is Not My Fuhrer” (Fall Children) continued the punk tradition of linking contemporary Republican presidents with the Hitler regime.
Like Reagan before him, Trump was also denigrated in “Fuck You Donald Trump” (Sharptooth and Bi Tyrant) and “Fuck Trump” (Scorn Dog). One band, Battle Pussy, double-double denounced him on their 2017 album Revolution with “Trumpty Dumpty,” “Tweety Tweet,” “No Trump” and “You’re Fired.”
As Reagan had been before him, Trump was also suggestively threatened in songs like “Do You Think Donald Trump Is Flammable” (Savage World), “Die Trump Die” (Psycho Sin, a noisecore group that had written similar songs about Reagan 40 years earlier), and a few other violent assertions that might cause listeners concern in light of the attempts on his life during the run up to the recent election.
Whether these and the many others not mentioned represent the musical movement hoped for in 2016 is debatable. With only four years to work with, there were limitations compared to what was produced by punks during the Reagan Revolution. Never in the history of music had one man received the lyrical attention Ronald Reagan did. But that could change.
With Donald Trump winning the presidency again, will we witness a “wave of independent-spirited, political conscious” music as The Guardian pined about eight years earlier? Are punks ready and gearing up for another round of lyrical lashing?
The answer to both questions might be found, ironically, in Finland. Not long before I left for Helsinki, I got a new release update for a band I follow on Spotify called Rattus. First formed in 1978, they are one of Finland’s most well-known hardcore groups. The song suggested was titled “Keppiä Donaldille” — loosely translated as “Stick it to Donald.”
Exactly 40 years earlier, it was Reagan that drew the group’s ire on what was originally titled “Keppiä Ronaldille.” The beginnings of a reboot? We’ll have to wait and see. If the history of punk tells us anything, it is that Republican administrations receive plenty of lyrical attention. Here’s hoping the response is a worthy and meaningful one, which brings me to my last point.
Is all of this worth it? My book that’s out in May is titled Hardcore Punk in the Age of Reagan: The Lyrical Lashing of an American Presidency. Anyone who reads will quickly surmise that I’m as much a fan as a scholar of the bands I reference. I argue that Reagan helped usher in one of the most meaningful (although often ignored by scholars of the era) critical protests in our nation’s history.
But at what cost did this come? Proxy wars across the globe, drastic cuts in social services, the most massive military buildup ever, the threat of nuclear holocaust, the continued militarization of law enforcement, the despoiling of public lands… Was all of this worth the incredible artistic outpouring that is 1980s hardcore punk? That is a question that we should constantly be asking ourselves, particularly in light of the fact that many of the same concerns still plague us today.
Since Donald Trump entered the political arena there has clearly been an increasingly unstable sense of order that all Americans — left and right — have felt at one point or another. It was this feeling that prompted punks during his first term to take up their pens. It will most likely do so again and Rattus might have thrown the first punk punch. But again, will it be worth it?
My answer is a firm yes — not because punk bands create tangible change with their lyrical pronouncements, but rather because the presence of populist protest is an essential aspect of the American democratic experiment that must be maintained. Punk rock, in my opinion, is a much-needed continuation of this trend.
George Orwell once wrote, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” The value of punk rock isn’t that it will eliminate such oppression. It never has and never will.
Its value lies in being one of the few art forms still willing to candidly make us aware of who or what is wearing that boot.
 | A guest post by
|