With Rufus Wainwright coming to town in early March, here’s a song about the politics of the United States that’s a decade old, but has weathered well into the age of Trump:
You can decide if you prefer the orchestrated George Michael version.
It’s not that hard most mornings to get struck by a sense that our little country is one of the last of the functioning democracies. Plenty of damage done here. Plenty good done here better than much of the world. It’s OK to say that.
It’s getting harder to even wake up and hear of the latest outrage to political decency in the United States. Many would prefer to have their existing prejudices about the United States government perpetually reinforced; that it never did any good, that its actions in the world are never intended for good, that it always damages the world. Plenty including Hardt and Negri, Chomsky, and Greenwald, can take you there if you want.
Wearingly, we’ve got several years of Trump’s politics whether he stays or goes. His presence, his actions and the court cases to come loom so powerful that U.S. politics and media discourse about politics will be irrevocably darkened. It’s not a side-show; it’s his necessary task to liquefy public life and public accountability in order to sustain his share within the global 1% and the interests of all others within that 1%.
Wainwright is singing of codes within such practices for weaponising evangelical Christianity through racism, homophobia, and misogyny as America does now so efficiently. Beyond specific politicians, this song speaks to a particular disgusted weariness.
Wainwright’s video pitches his plight from a concrete cell.
George Michael goes full operatic, amplifying the symbols into loudspeakers.
The words roll melancholic down either way:
I may just never see you again or might as well You took advantage of a world that loved you well I’m going to a town that has already been burnt down I’m so tired of you America.”