After rock star Bruce Springsteen opened his European tour in May with a speech calling President Donald Trump “unfit” for office, the politician sounded off in a rant on Truth Social, alleging that Springsteen’s performance at one of Kamala Harris’ campaign rallies was an “illegal contribution” and calling him — along with Beyonce, Oprah and Bono — “unpatriotic entertainers.”

The president’s attack on these artists is only the latest chronicle in a larger war waged on the First Amendment, which includes a Federal Communications Commission investigation into public news organizations and the defunding of universities where pro-Palestinian student protests occurred last year. 

Trump’s selective defense of free speech only protects speech that supports his political agenda, which is a dramatic perversion of what the First Amendment is intended for. 

Labeling all dissidents as “unpatriotic” further proves the president’s misunderstanding of free speech. Being critical of your own country in hope of growth is one of the most patriotic things one can do, which is why the Founding Fathers also enshrined the right to protest within the First Amendment. 

Alternatively, idly watching one of history’s great democracies slowly slip toward authoritarianism seems to be a stance that only those disloyal to the United States’ values and the Constitution, which enshrines them, would take.

By questioning the legality of Harris’ collaboration with countless musical artists, Trump is essentially echoing the same grievance as countless right-wing lemmings in Instagram comment sections who beg to keep politics out of music. 

The president isn’t an advocate for removing all politics from music, rather just the ideas that aren’t in accordance with his. He had no problem with the Village People and Carrie Underwood performing at his inauguration this January. This promotion of unilateral censorship is reminiscent of Nazi book burnings that began in 1933 and Mao Zedong’s destruction of cultural artifacts during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. 

Trump’s demeaning label of artists as simply “entertainers” implies that music is made for the sole purpose of pleasure. This might be true to the average Top-40 listener, but for the more in-tune music enjoyer, the intention and meaning behind a song hold equal value to its catchiness. 

One of, if not the most, prominent muses of artistic expression throughout history has been politics, inspiring works from ancient Egyptian statues of pharaohs to Picasso’s anti-fascist paintings such as “Guernica” and his series of prints within “The Dream and Lie of Franco.” American folk revival compositions of the 1960s like Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” continued this artistic tradition on American soil.

The ability to enjoy art as purely “entertainment” is a privilege that rich, white men like Trump have taken for granted. Those same people calling for Bruce Springsteen to be apolitical — a stance which his 40-year career has never taken — are likely those who have never relied on a piece of music to elucidate their struggles for basic human rights. 

Since Trump’s executive orders have made the livelihoods of undocumented immigrants, LGBTQIA+ individuals and people of color a political issue, everything these minorities do has become a “political” act. Artists who have had family taken away due to Executive Order 14159 or professional dreams shattered due to Executive Order 14173 are sure to exhibit their subsequent emotions in their work. 

As politics become more and more intertwined with our daily lives, they also become more intertwined with our art. 

Authentic art shouldn’t be confused with propaganda, however. The time-honored tradition of protest music speaks truth to power; it doesn’t side with it. The themes of free speech, equality and basic human empathy preached by activist artists shouldn’t have to be placed exclusively on one side of the political divide, but in Trump’s America, they will always find themselves opposite the subjugating MAGA regime. 

Art is a medium of expression — one that grows exponentially more salient as people’s literal voices are being stripped from them. Without a microphone being held to the people, how are they expected to protect their very power that is essential to democracy?

Making art allows people to comment on the human condition, and in a country where so many people’s basic right to exist has become a political matter, it’s become impossible for them to create authentic art that isn’t inherently political. The exchange of perspectives and ideas that occurs through art and music lays the foundation of respect and empathy that’s vital to a society where “all men are created equal.”