Last week we reported that Trump’s on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again (on-again!) trip to London was finally scheduled for July 13 — Friday the 13th. Human rights activists are already planning on protesting at the time of this “working visit” where Trump will allegedly meet the queen, and officials like London Mayor Sadiq Khan have tweeted their opposition. One group of Trump protestors has called for a musically charged demonstration. They want to get Green Day, the American punk rock band that began their rise to fame in the late ’80s, on top of the U.K. music chart. More specifically, these activists want the song “American Idiot” at number one.
In case you forgot about the 2004 hit, or weren’t old enough to jam out to behind bedroom walls (guilty), here’s a refresher:
More on the agenda of the U.K. Trump protestors
The Facebook page for these Trump protestors, “Get American Idiot to No.1 for Turmp’s State Visit,” has already been followed by over 14,000 people (and the group does acknowledge that they know Trump’s U.K. visit isn’t an official state visit).
They’re calling on fellow President Trump protestors to download and stream “American Idiot” between Friday, July 6 and Thursday, July 12.
Their reason for this demonstration? It’s a) funny and b) symbolic. It’s a peaceful protest to “show the rest of the world what we think of him.”
Green Day in a Trump America
According to Complex, lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong shared a post about the campaign on Instagram with the caption, “Just going to leave this here.” He then deleted it.
“American Idiot” was originally written about former president George Bush as part of an anti-war effort. As Armstrong wrote in a 2017 ClickHole Voices blog post, “…now that enough time has passed to let the dust and controversy settle, I finally feel comfortable revealing that the ‘American Idiot’ I sang about was none other than President George W. Bush.”
Armstrong went on to explain why he waited so long — 13 years — to fill fans in on this. Green Day, he wrote, “decided it would be too shocking to name President Bush on our album directly, so we obscured our true intentions behind inscrutable lines like ‘I’m not a part of a redneck agenda / Now everybody do the propaganda / And sing along to the age of paranoia.’ While we agreed that our fans deserved to know the whole truth eventually, we also believed it was just too much of a bombshell to drop into American consciousness at the time.”
Armstrong actually started yelling, “F**k you, Donald Trump!” while performing “American Idiot” post inauguration.
But Armstrong told Rolling Stone a month after his ClickHole Voices blog post that he still wants people to remember what makes them truly American: “We all come from different backgrounds, but we come together and create this world. It’s like a microcosm for the rest of the world. I want people to feel unity when they come to a show.”
“At the same time,” he added, “I’m not going to p*ss out on saying what I feel about [Trump] and his administration.”
