The punk rock band Green Day has returned to criticize another Republican administration, years after they protested the George W. Bush administration in the mid-2000s.
On Martin Luther King Jr. day, the punk rock band dropped a video for their song “Troubled Times” off their new “Revolution Radio” album.
The song calls for greater awareness of history and for citizens to stand up against bigotry and propaganda. While President-elect Trump’s name is not explicitly mentioned in the song, the video — created by Manu Viqueira and David Rodriguez Simon — shows a newspaper caricature of the Republican businessman with his signature “Make America Great Again” hat and yellow hair.
“A new day dawning / Comes without warning / So don’t think twice / We live in troubled times,” lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong sings.
The video features historical images and newspaper clippings of Martin Luther King Jr., as well as images of historical movements of resistance including women’s suffrage protests, Civil Rights marches and anti-Islamaphobia. These are interrupted by images of the Trump-like figure making speeches to the public while the background is set aflame. Images of KKK rallies are juxtaposed to footage of the March on Washington.
The video ends with an anonymous hand pressing a button at a voting booth which causes clippings of women’s suffrage and Civil Rights to be thrown in the trash. The button transforms into a red button which sets off a mushroom cloud, implying nuclear war.
Green Day has recently made their resentment of Trump known, breaking into an anti-Trump chant during their performance at the American Music Awards in November. The band changed the lyrics of their song “Bang Bang” from “No war / No KKK / No fascist USA” to “No Trump / No KKK / No fascist USA.”
While the band hadn’t originally intended to start that chant, Armstrong later said of the performance, “I think with the AMAs [performance], it was a good start to challenge [Trump] on all of his ignorant policies and his racism.”
