January 28, 2026
2:17 PM ET

  • Hylactor@sopuli.xyz
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    2 days ago

    As a song, it’s just ok. But you know a huge percentage of ice agents like Bruce, he’s too popular for there not to be, and I have to imagine the surreality of having a truly iconic artist write a song about you has to have an impact. It’s getting harder for these guys to just go through the motions and not think about what’s really happening. Things like this song gives me hope for some of them having a Mitchell and Webb type, “are we the baddies” epiphany.

    • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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      2 days ago

      There will be no introspection.

      They think Born in the USA is a patriotic song.

      They listen to Rage Against the Machine without a second thought.

      • rmrf@lemmy.ml
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        7 hours ago

        Those both require some level of awareness. A sing literally named after modern events is pretty clear cut imo. The dumbest kid I knew in HS could figure it out

        • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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          5 hours ago

          You’d think so, but have you looked around? A third of this country thinks Portland has literally been on fire for a year now.

          • rmrf@lemmy.ml
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            3 hours ago

            Those people are not told anything otherwise and have no convenient access to alternative view points or reason to seek them out. There’s a non-zero chance they’d gain an understanding and legitimately risk being outed from the social groups they’ve known their whole life. Visit small town southern USA and you’ll see what I mean. Many republicans are, very sweet people that truly mean well. They’re involved in their community and probably don’t even have cable; they just receive local news over the air. This is probably part of the issue You’re not going to see clips of these people, though, you’ll only the see the occasional racist from a modern sundown town that will get a rise out of you, just like they only see that Pretti was armed to the teeth with malicious intent. Stuff like that always gets the most attention, even in the fediverse.

            I’m not sure what the fix is, but demonizing these people that are unknowingly the voting engine enabling this when they truly believe they’re in the right will only exacerbate the issue IMO. They’re victims of the same system we are, they’re just steering the ship in the direction they think is right instead of rowing.

            I think this song serves to pull the blindfold down a bit and place blame on the government committing the violence in a way that doesn’t vilify the ordinary people that were fooled by a professional fraud. It may be the only way people some people get an outside perspective without active effort, and at a community level instead of an individual level. This is important in reducing the social risk.

      • Hylactor@sopuli.xyz
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        2 days ago

        I did limit my hopes to “some”, but I agree, introspection is woefully lacking in a America. Peer pressure should also help, though.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I feel like Bruce is probably not what a lot of these guys were listening to in high school. A lot of them look like they’re under 40. The Boss’ core audience is Gen X. Born to Run was 1975.

      I’m right on that X / Millennial cusp, and Springsteen was the music my older cousins listened to. They’re about 55-60 now.

      • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        Agreed, I am also on that cusp (a Xennial if you will) and Springsteen was never in our contemporary music selection. I still like that he did it, but it’s points at pate boomers and early to mid Xers.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Also same age (I prefer “Oregon Trail generation”), but I did grow up listening to music like Springsteen. It may be because my parents were older, but they often had the radio tuned to oldies or classic rock stations and so that’s what I got used to.

          • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 day ago

            That makes sense. I mostly heard “yacht rock” crap from my parents, which I ended up hating with the fire of a thousand suns, so i can’t relate :D