Politicians trying way too hard to relate with the youths of today is hardly a new phenomenon. That’s why you had to suffer through Hillary dabbing on “Ellen” and Ted Cruz quoting “Simpsons” episodes during the last election cycle. But Beto O’Rourke, if not different from these examples, makes for an interesting case study. The Democratic Party’s new poster boy for common sense reforms and pragmatism — even though he lost the race that made him famous — is totally punk rock, and he really wants you to know that.
If anything, though, I’m surprised it took us this long for a neoliberal punk rocker to enter the national discourse, and I can’t deny that the guy knows his stuff. You’ll be hard pressed to find an interview where he doesn’t talk about how post-hardcore legends Fugazi — who insisted on low ticket prices and espoused progressive ideals throughout their entire career — – showed him how one could live ethically in a capitalist society. If not that, he’ll probably talk about how he was in a band with Cedric Bixler-Zavala of At the Drive-in/Mars Volta fame. Bixler-Zavala is glad to wax poetic about his former bandmate, and other genuinely left-leaning musicians like Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong seem happy to finally have someone of their own subculture as a Democratic Party influencer. After all, these bands offered people like them — myself included — refuge as they got more and more alienated from the political sphere and the idea that people could radically transform society for the better. Since the Minutemen sang that punk rock changed their lives, maybe it was only natural for us to think that punk rock could change America.
The issue with this, in my opinion, is twofold: Punk subculture in of itself cannot make capitalism a force for good, and O’Rourke’s virtue signalling is nothing more than a grift. Since the inception of the genre roughly 40 years ago, the world has become increasingly crippled by austerity, class inequality and xenophobia, and rock music as a whole preaches to a choir of alienated youth at most. I won’t pretend to be sure what can solve the contradictions of capitalism, but I’m sure it isn’t punk rock. Even if this weren’t the case, the fact that he frequently voted for Republican legislation and flip-flops on issues like Medicare for All — things that should be a litmus test for any self-identified “progressive” — isn’t very encouraging. His “cool uncle” persona is one that allows his policies and voting record to be lackluster, because no matter how empty his promises are he can always shield himself behind a Husker Du shirt or a selfie he takes at a Melvins show. I don’t mean to knock on the value of music, but I think O’Rourke hysteria is proof that we shouldn’t see it as a revolutionary force beyond itself.
Andrew Kilbride, a Staff Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at AKilbride21@wooster.edu.