Tom Morello is baffled by the fear of political music exhibited on Fox Business this week.
The Rage Against the Machine guitarist responded Tuesday on social media to a segment that saw pundits decry Green Day’s performance on New Year’s Eve after the “American Idiot” band changed their lyrics to slam former President Donald Trump’s “MAGA agenda.”
The original 2004 song famously had frontman Billie Joe Armstrong slam the “redneck agenda” of former President George W. Bush and his invasion of Iraq. Fox Business pundit Cheryl Casone appeared not to mind the track — until it was changed to diss Trump.
“The original song was actually a post-9/11 song because the band at the time was upset about what was happening overseas in the Iraq War and all that,” she said. “It’s probably their biggest hit, but now, to change it, to continue to make it political, you’re just alienating people.”
Morello responded to the clip on Twitter, formerly X, with 3 simple words: “Is that so?”
That sentiment was echoed by countless users who not only found the pearl-clutching on Fox hilarious, but utterly hypocritical. The conservative network has, after all, previously platformed right-wing artists like Ted Nugent and Kid Rock for their own hateful rhetoric.
“This same network gets analysis from Fabio and Paulie D,” wrote one user on X.
“The song was already (very unambiguously) about how much a republican and his supporters suck, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills,” wrote another about the “American Idiot” track. “Did they think it was a song about a random idiot going on adventures?”
Others were confused by another Fox Business pundit arguing that Armstrong is no longer “raging against the machine,” when Green Day is a separate band entirely. That ignorance was presumably spurred by an X post from Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform.
“Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it,” he wrote Monday.
Morello, who graduated from Harvard University with a political science major, has been a lifelong activist — who performed at Occupy Wall Street events in the U.S. and Europe and co-founded the Axis of Justice nonprofit organization in his spare time.
Rage Against the Machine has consistently shared their political views in song lyrics and performances. During their 2022 tour, the band displayed the message “Abort the Supreme Court” following the fall of Roe v. Wade and pledged to donate to reproductive rights organizations.
Other users joined Morello in criticizing the pundits for appearing more concerned with song lyrics instead of actual issues affecting Americans.