When Pearl Jam played in Big Sky Country, they donated a portion of ticket sales to beleaguered Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester. The band made it back into the headlines for the first time in forever, not because of their music, but because of their poster depicting the decomposing body of President Trump.
The poster is something to behold. The White House goes up in flames as Tester launches through the air in a big green tractor over the south lawn and Trump’s moldering corpse. Not-so-subtle smoke rises over the presidential residence to spell out the word “vote.” The art is all very 1990s and, of course, it was controversial.
Pushed to explain the poster, Tester’s office meekly condemned the violence even after the senator fundraised with the band. “We never saw the poster before the show, and we don’t like it,” spokesman Chris Meagher told the Washington Post. “And we don’t condone violence of any kind. Period.”
The National Republican Senate Committee, of course, whacked Tester for his involvement with this new ad.
“Sen. Tester showed his true colors by refusing to personally condemn even the most unhinged, far-left fringes of his party who’ve gone so low as to call for outright violence against the President of the United States,” said NRSC Spokesman Calvin Moore. “If Sen. Tester won’t do the right thing, Montana voters should do it for him and vote him out of office.”
And while it is ridiculous that Pearl Jam is making the politics page, there is something to that criticism. Senators should not be rocking out with musicians who daydream about the death of a president. Musicians, at the same time, shouldn’t waste their breath with stupid political tropes. No one at Woodstock wished death on Richard Milhous Nixon. They managed to change the trajectory of the 20th century without campaigning.
Unfortunately, though, the NRSC went easy on Tester. His real crime is hanging out with Pearl Jam, a group of musicians best known for mumbling into a microphone and calling it music.
