The Role of Politics Part Two: Recent Examples and the Debate

This is the second part of my article on the history and role of politics in music. For the first part, you can view it here: (author’s note: add link). Please read it before you read this second part!

2000s: Post-9/11 Patriotic Fervor, Proto-Cancel Culture, and Counter-Patriotism

I don’t think I need to re-hash how bad the September 11 attacks were. It is perhaps the most well-known event in American history, maybe excluding the American Revolution, World War II, and the COVID pandemic. When 9/11 happened, it signaled a fundamental shift in the relationship between the American people and their country. Patriotism skyrocketed. People wanted revenge—they wanted war. And so began the War on Terror. In October of ‘01, we invaded Afghanistan to take out the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In 2003, we invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

Not long after the War on Terror began, a massive split in the American public occurred. While most people were in favor of George W. Bush and the war, some people viewed it as unnecessary. Those who were against the war were often shunned in a form of cancel culture before it was even a thing. For example, restaurants changing French fries to Freedom Fries when France refused to join the war. Something that will never make sense to me. I don’t know, though, I wasn’t alive at the time.

The most well-known example of this “cancellation” in music occurred on March 10, 2003. Country music group The Chicks (then known as the Dixie Chicks) were on a world tour, playing in London at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire venue. The Iraq War was 10 days away from being launched and everyone knew it was coming. Lead singer Natalie Maines went on stage and claimed she regretted being from Texas (President Bush’s home state) and that she did not want war. In my opinion, a perfectly reasonable comment in hindsight, given how much loss we incurred in Iraq.

But people in 2003 didn’t have hindsight. Immediately after Maines’ comments, The Chicks were effectively—and loudly—abandoned by the country music industry. Their cover of “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac dropped off the charts from #10 within two weeks. They were blacklisted from country music radio—several DJs were even suspended or fired for playing their music. In an Atlanta poll, 76% of listeners said they would return their CDs if they could.

Maines apologized a few days later, then in 2006 she rescinded her apology, saying that Bush deserved no respect. She clarified that she did not have any disrespect for the troops, and her issue was with the government sending them off to the war.

Despite this, Natalie Maines’ view was hardly uncommon in the music world—maybe not in the heavily conservative realm of country music, but certainly overall. Another band, this time in Los Angeles, were feeling angry; in 2002 they were working on an album and were almost finished when their master tapes were stolen. They channeled this anger at the world into an album many consider iconic to this day. The band was Green Day, and the album was American Idiot.

American Idiot has two explicitly political songs on the album: its title track, as well as the track “Holiday.” While the rest of the songs certainly touch on social dysfunction, those two tracks call out American conservative culture. When discussing the album’s themes surrounding the Iraq War, singer Billie Joe Armstrong said: “This war that's going on in Iraq [is] basically to build a pipeline and put up a f***ing Wal-Mart.” He, and the band, felt that American news media and culture were painting America as saviors, while the rest of the world viewed them as warmongers. Drummer Tré Cool even compared America to the George Orwell book Nineteen Eighty-Four, differentiating it from the book in that our country is “ruled” by two or three corporations and not a totalitarian party. The question is: has anything really changed?

2010s: Social Justice, Equality, and Safe Politics

As the 2000s ran down, the focus shifted away from wars abroad into internal issues. By the early 2010s, social justice had become a key facet of American culture. A movement was growing, one calling for true equality for everyone after so many years of a lack of equality on the national level. Gay marriage was one key element of this movement. People believed the government had no business dictating who someone should marry. 

From this movement, in 2011, came the unofficial anthem of gay pride even today. It had a positive message: no matter who we love, no matter what skin color we are, we’re all humans. And we were all… “Born This Way.” Lady Gaga’s 2011 Number One hit was a stepping stone in the mainstream recognition of gay culture. Even now, if you go to a Pride event, you’ll hear someone blasting that song. Lady Gaga said, regarding “Born This Way”’s message: “I want it to be an attack, an assault on the issue because I think, especially in today's music, everything gets kind of washy sometimes and the message gets hidden in the lyrical play.” And the message paid off, becoming an iconic—if not absolutely legendary—song uplifting everyone, but especially those who needed it. Gay marriage was legalized in 2015 after the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision. Things were looking up after so many years of people hiding who they really were.

On the flip side, gun violence, racial violence, and police brutality against Black communities in America was becoming a growing problem. For example, Ferguson, Missouri in 2014—a series of riots and unrest that propelled the idea of police militarization into the mainstream. The Black Lives Matter movement was becoming massively known too—prior to its universality in 2020. And people were channeling this energy into their art.

It was from this energy that spawned one of the most well-known and successful modern tracks surrounding police brutality and racial violence. Rapper-singer Childish Gambino (real name Donald Glover) released the standalone single “This Is America” on May 6, 2018, while hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live. The song’s provocative lyrics and music video (which depicted dramatizations of mass shootings, including one of a church choir inspired by the 2015 Charleston church shooting) caused it to shoot directly to Number One in the United States in the first week—and for a week after. 68% of the song’s total streams came from the music video alone. 

It was another successful callout of an American failing—the failure to protect its own citizens, especially marginalized ones, from racial violence and gun violence. Before the wider spread of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, this was certainly the most mainstream the movement had gotten.

2020s: MAGA Country Number Ones, Polarization, and “Slop”-ification

I don’t know if it’s recency bias or the Internet’s ubiquitousness, but the 2020s decade has certainly become the most openly political time period in history. While I could go on and on about music during the COVID-19 pandemic (particularly calling out politicians’ hypocrisy, such as Britain’s mini-hit “Boris Johnson Is a F***ing C**t” by The K**ts, which spawned out of Johnson’s Downing Street lockdown party allegations, and hit Number 5 on the UK charts on Christmas 2020), there are more overtly relevant examples of political music in recent years.

When I think of political music in the 2020s, I always like to bring up the existence of MAGA Country. There are two songs—both released in 2023—that I think of. 

The first one is “Try That In a Small Town” by Jason Aldean, which was accused of being a secret endorsement of lynching of perceived city-slickers and gangsters. Aldean and his team deny the allegations, but the media spectacle and subsequent stream hype by conservatives—an occurrence frequently seen when media frames a song like this—caused it to jump to Number One.

The second one, despite being claimed by the conservative community, was not actually a pro-MAGA song. The same year, Virginia-based singer-songwriter Oliver Anthony Music (real stage name) released the song “Rich Men North of Richmond.” Anthony, despite not being famous in any right, also generated quite a media spectacle. He called out low wages, food insecurity, inflation, taxes, Jeffrey Epstein, welfare abuse, and government power. The song’s intriguing lyrics made it go viral on social media and debut at Number One in the United States. It was even played at the 2023 Republican presidential debate and a Donald Trump town hall in October 2024. 

Anthony stated that the song was calling out politicians on both sides of the aisle—including those he was perceived to be supporting—and decried the song’s “weaponization” by both the right and left. 

A limited form of right-wing presence in music continued in late 2025, but this time in an ironic and surreal fashion, and generated by AI. Not long after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah on September 10, 2025, an anonymous user by the name of “Spalexma” posted an AI-generated song and music video titled “We Are Charlie Kirk.” The song and video are Kafkaesque to say the least, featuring obviously AI-generated lyrics and two bizarre AI videos of Vice President J.D. Vance and Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk performing the song on stage. Needless to say, it immediately became a meme—especially on the left, because it is just such a strange track.

Before we get into the heated debate about the role of politics in music, I also cannot discuss 2020s political music without bringing up the man known as Tom MacDonald. He’s another MAGA singer, this time in the hip-hop genre, and writes songs in support of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Most notably, he released a song titled “Facts” featuring podcaster Ben Shapiro, which hit the Top 20 on the U.S. charts due to the same media spectacle as all the other songs. Fun fact: Tom MacDonald is actually Canadian. Most music critics, even those who are politically neutral, agree that MacDonald’s music isn’t that good from an objective standpoint.

And of course, the appropriation of the Village People’s classic “YMCA”—a song often interpreted as being about hanging out at your local YMCA to “cruise” in search of a sex partner, particularly among gay men. A lot of people don’t know that’s what the song actually means! President Donald Trump uses the song and dances to it at many of his rallies and events. 

“Shut Up & Sing” vs. “Use Your Platform”

There is a heated debate in music over whether or not artists should use their platforms for activism. The idea is that since many of them have millions upon millions of fans, spreading awareness of social and political issues should be considered paramount. When Israel began its bombing of the Gaza Strip, which is considered a genocide by Amnesty International, many fans of artists such as Taylor Swift and Harry Styles called upon them to speak up about it. They did not, at least not openly, which led to backlash from the fans. 

But when President Donald Trump alleged that Taylor Swift supported him, and used an AI video to back it up, Swift came out with a statement saying that she supported Kamala Harris. Some of her fans—as well as people who didn’t like her—were in uproar, claiming that she only came out of the woodwork to clear her own reputation and not for actually supporting Harris. They believed that her extent of political messaging is “white feminism” and issues that affect her personally. I think it’s more complicated than that, but I do see where they’re coming from.

On the flip-side, some people argue that artists should not be trusted to use their platforms. I will get into whether or not they’re qualified to do so later, but for now, let’s analyze another reason to “shut up and sing.” Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, two of the richest and most popular pop singers in the world, both openly supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Some critics of this argued that the amount of wealth they have makes them out of touch with politics, causing Harris to seem elitist and not in tune with the desires of working-class America. It would make the 2024 election seem like a “who supports me” competition rather than actual, tangible stances, thereby hurting Harris’ chances of winning in 2024.

Naturally, when someone uses their platform, someone is bound to get mad and disagree. No matter what. When Billie Eilish took to the stage at the 2026 Grammy awards, in the wake of the ICE madness in Minnesota, she said: “No one is illegal on stolen land.” Critics immediately jumped on her, saying that her mansion was on stolen Tongva tribal land and that she had no right to speak if she lived there. Utah Senator Mike Lee said in a Twitter (X) post: “Any white person who does a public 'stolen land' acknowledgement should immediately give his or her land to native Americans. Otherwise, they don't mean it.” Trivia: this event was actually the reason I decided to write this article.

The Tongva tribe were native to what is now the Greater Los Angeles area. The tribe issued a statement, appreciating her acknowledgment of indigenous land theft while stressing the importance of public figures specifically acknowledging what tribe was native to a specific land. In a comment to the Daily Mail, a representative of the Tongva said: “It is our hope that in future discussions, the tribe can explicitly be referenced to ensure the public understands that the greater Los Angeles Basin remains Gabrieleno Tongva territory.”

Another example of an artist using their platform and getting flak for it is Bruce Springsteen. Around the same time as Billie Eilish’s Grammys controversy, and the ICE crisis in Minnesota, Springsteen joined forces with Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and hosted the “Defend Minnesota” concert. The concert, held at the iconic Minneapolis venue First Avenue, also featured outspoken political band Rise Against and its singer Tim McIlrath. Springsteen additionally released a song called “Streets of Minneapolis” which decried the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, as well as ICE violence in the Twin Cities. 

While most people appreciated his gesture, President Trump bashed Springsteen multiple times over the next few weeks, calling him “overrated” and a “dried up prune.” He also attacked Springsteen’s appearance. Springsteen continued to call out Trump on his ongoing “Land of Hopes and Dreams American Tour” and even rejoined forces with Tom Morello in the tour’s opening show in Minneapolis.

In recent performances, Green Day and Billie Joe Armstrong have updated a line in the song “American Idiot.” During the second verse, Armstrong says: “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda.” However, since beginning their most recent tour, Armstrong has replaced the line with “I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda.” Of course, it was met with outrage from the right and joy from the left. Just goes to show how timeless that song is, though.

Activism—But Not How I Want it Done

A particularly controversial example of activism took place in Sepang, Malaysia, on July 21, 2023 at the Good Vibes Festival. English rock band The 1975 were headlining the festival, at the peak of their careers so far. Lead singer Matty Healy had garnered significant media attention in the wake of a rumored relationship with Taylor Swift (and several cancellation attempts that year alone). The setlist was full of deep-cut classics in their discography such as “28”—not their hits like “The Sound”—and was a surprise for devoted fans. 

After the fifth song, Healy gave a speech in protest of Malaysia’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws and kissed  his bandmate, bassist Ross MacDonald, on the lips. Two songs later, Healy announced they’d been kicked out of the festival and “banned from Malaysia.” The band were allegedly arrested and sued by the festival’s promoter, and the festival never happened again.

The gesture was immediately divisive. On one hand, people viewed it as brave and standing up for the queer youth of Malaysia—that LGBTQ+ rights are a universal value and not a Western one. On the other hand, critics—particularly in Malaysia itself—viewed it as dangerous and a “white savior” mentality, saying that it would lead to retribution from the government and religious right in the country. 

But this begs the question: if an artist truly intends to spread awareness of an issue in good faith, does how they do it matter? Healy was an outspoken activist, especially for the LGBTQ+ community: kissing a male fan on stage in Dubai in 2019, ranting about Alabama’s abortion laws and openly telling people to shoot him if they had a problem with his statement, inviting Greta Thunberg to speak on the intro track on their 2020 album Notes on a Conditional Form, and many, many more examples. But was this a step too far? I would argue, no, it wasn’t. The band almost cancelled the performance in Malaysia after learning of the country’s laws, then decided to do it in order to make this statement—and show that the government was the problem, not the kids.

Are Artists Actually Qualified to Talk About Politics?

Some detractors of artists using their platforms argue that artists are not qualified to talk about politics, and therefore should not be trusted with it. I disagree. I don’t expect Olivia Rodrigo to get on stage and talk to me about dialectical materialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, or the labor theory of value. And no one really does, either. With limited exceptions, people don’t want artists to tell them how to think. Artists have a huge platform, and millions of fans who could definitely be capable of mobilization (look at Swifties or BTS fans). Just making them aware of an issue’s existence, and maybe their stance on it, is often enough. It’ll get people thinking and talking about the issue. 

Of course, there is an exception to the rule. There are artists who are objectively qualified to talk about politics. Most notably: Tom Morello, once again. Can you tell I’m a fan? People don’t really know this, but Morello is a graduate in social studies and political science. That’s good, right? Seems qualified. Well, his degree is from Harvard University. You tell me. I would argue that he is perhaps one of the most qualified musicians to talk about politics. While other popstars and rockstars aren’t political geniuses like Morello, they’re not exactly dumb and unaware. In this age of political ubiquitousness, they’re certainly aware of what’s going on, which is the perfect foundation for a serious discussion of social issues.

Overall… Art is Political Whether We Like it or Not

The fact of the matter is that music and politics go hand-in-hand. Art in general, actually. Yes, even non-political art. Because the personal is political. Working-class struggles are political. Sadly, even love is political. Everything an artist does is influenced by their own life, in a specific social and political context. Which makes every single piece of art in existence political—even if it’s not obvious. And there is nothing wrong with that.