PBS made an classic Democrat programming choice to mark the 250th anniversary weekend: A half-hour “PBS News Special” on a famous populist rocker and songwriter turned blunt leftist political activist: “Bruce Springsteen: Finding America in Song.”
Airing from the new Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University in his home state of New Jersey, the show featured a sit-down interview by PBS News Hour host Geoff Bennett with the 76-year-old “Boss” himself, with a little music history and a big dose of politics to mark our country’s 250th birthday.
After a fawning tour of the museum, which hosts Springsteen archival material like handwritten lyrics along with a borrowed collection of musical Americana (including “Indigenous” and “Gender” exhibits), Bennett teed Springsteen up to warn viewers the country was in “a very dangerous moment” under President Trump. No challenging questions were offered, certainly nothing about left-wing hypocrisy regarding this artist-of-the-people’s sky-high concert ticket prices.
They hyped his "critical patriotism," which seems to align neatly with Democrat partisanship. He wasn't a "critical patriot" when Biden came in. He starred in a media-celebrated Super Bowl commercial urging America to meet "in the middle" -- with Biden?
Geoff Bennett: For Springsteen, being connected to his times has often meant examining the tension between America’s ideals and its realities....from songs like "Youngstown," a lament for the hollowing out of industrial America, to "American Skin (41 Shots)," his meditation on the 1999 police killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed immigrant in New York City.
[Springsteen concert clip]: “You can get killed just for living / In your American skin”
Bennett: He’s also been one of the country’s most politically engaged musicians, lending his voice to Democratic candidates for decades, performing at campaign rallies and Get Out the Vote events. You said before that loving your country means telling the truth about it. How has that guided your work?
Springsteen: Well, I believe in critical patriotism. I believe that’s the definition of a patriot, you know, that you love your country so much that you are willing to look at it clearly, recognize its faults, encourage it to be a better place, and believe that you carry in your heart the country that is waiting.
Bennett: In recent years, the politics that long informed Springsteen’s work has become more explicit. In January, after federal immigration authorities in Minnesota killed two U.S. citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, Springsteen responded with a song.
Hint: It was no "Born to Run."
Springsteen: So, in this case, I wrote a protest song ["Streets of Minneapolis"]. I thought, “Gee, maybe this is a little broad,” you know? But then I had my buddy Tom Morello, from Rage Against the Machine, and he says, "No, no, no," he says, Bruce, nuance is great, but, sometimes, you gotta kick ’em in the teeth." And so, that was a moment when you had to kick ’em in the teeth.
Springsteen's lyricism was never subtle, but lines like “King Trump's private army from the DHS" are truly hamfisted.
Bruce Springsteen talked to PBS on the nation's 250th birthday: "...we’re in a very dangerous moment, you know?...our democracy is threatened. The Constitution is threatened. We have an administration that...is a ship of fools,...a very, very, very dangerous time for America." pic.twitter.com/gFEM39cH5e
— Clay Waters 🇮🇱 (@claywaters44) July 5, 2026
Bennett made the 250th anniversary link explicit.
Bennett: “What’s fundamentally different, in your view, about this current moment, as we are about to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday?”
Springsteen: Yeah, bad timing. [Laughs] You know. I think we’re in a very dangerous moment, you know? Obviously, our democracy is threatened. The Constitution is threatened. We have an administration that, in my humble opinion, is a ship of fools, you know. It’s a very, very, very dangerous time for America. There have been other dangerous times. I was old enough to live through the ’60s, and I remember the assassinations of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Bobby Kennedy. You know, so it’s not like these are the first difficult times America’s been through. We had the Civil War….
Bennett: You play for audiences across the political spectrum. People who love your music might not share your politics.
Springsteen: Right.
Bennett: How does that strike you?
Springsteen graciously allowed it was fine for non-lefties to pay hundreds of dollars for tickets to his concerts as well.
Springsteen: That’s what I like. That’s fine. I like a big tent….
