At his weekend rally in Waco, Texas, former President Donald Trump played a recording of “Justice for All,” reportedly performed by “Donald J. Trump and the J6 Choir.” The audio file was accompanied by video of rioters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Released this month on Trump loyalist Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, the piece intersperses “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by a group of jailed insurrectionists with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in the most sanctimonious cadences imaginable. It closes with chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
“Justice for All” has all the trappings of a home-grown, weaponizable anthem, or what I prefer to call a “para-anthem.”
The choir’s tune will undoubtedly become part of MAGA’s heavy rotation. Trump has already co-opted the Village People’s “YMCA” and the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” into his soundscape. While those pop hits have been wrenched from their original cultural context and repurposed, “Justice for All” has all the trappings of a home-grown, weaponizable anthem, or what I prefer to call a “para-anthem.”
Journalists have set “Justice for All” within the context of Trump’s ongoing efforts to simultaneously deny and launder his attempted overthrow of the U.S. government. That’s understandable, but it’s also important to analyze the recording itself as a form of self-consciously right-wing cultural production, art that is explicitly created and disseminated as a form of ideological warfare.
Think, for example, of John McNaughton (described by New York magazine as a “Pro-Trump propaganda painter”), who has achieved fame and fortune depicting his idol as a synthesis of God, hunk and statesman. Though people opposed to Trump might dismiss this work, the truth is creative products that explicitly and aggressively challenge liberal conceptions of tolerance, diversity, secularism, multiculturalism — and even…
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