{"id":804358,"date":"2020-02-19T08:51:16","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T15:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=954835"},"modified":"2020-02-19T08:51:16","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T15:51:16","slug":"neil-young-pens-open-letter-to-donald-trump-you-are-a-disgrace-to-my-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/neil-young-pens-open-letter-to-donald-trump-you-are-a-disgrace-to-my-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Young Pens Open Letter to Donald Trump: \u2018You Are a Disgrace to My Country\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/neil-young-letter-to-trump.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/neil-young\/\" id=\"auto-tag_neil-young\" data-tag=\"neil-young\">Neil Young<\/a> has never hidden his contempt for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/donald-trump\/\" id=\"auto-tag_donald-trump\" data-tag=\"donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a>, but now that he\u2019s officially an American citizen, he raising his voice even louder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are a disgrace to my country,\u201d Young writes in a <a href=\"https:\/\/neilyoungarchives.com\/news\/2\/article?id=Viewpoint-An-Open-Letter-To-Donald-J-Trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">long, scathing open letter to Trump<\/a> on his <em>Neil Young Archives<\/em> website. \u201cYour mindless destruction of our shared natural resources, our environment and our relationships with friends around the world is unforgivable. \u2026 Our first black president was a better man than you are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s particularly irked by Trump\u2019s usage of his song \u201cRockin\u2019 in the Free World\u201d at his rallies. Young has asked him to stop this practice numerous times while acknowledging he has no legal recourse to force him. \u201c[It] is not a song you can you can trot out at one of your rallies,\u201d he writes. \u201cPerhaps you could have been a bass player and played in a rock and roll band. That way you could have been on stage at a rally every night in front of your fans, if you were any good, and you might be\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery time \u2018Rockin\u2019 in the Free World\u2019 or one of my my songs is played at your rallies,\u201d he continues, \u201cI hope you hear my voice. Remember it is the voice of a tax-paying U.S. citizen who does not support you. Me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Near the end of the letter, Young comes very close to endorsing Bernie Sanders. \u201cOne of your opponents has the answers I like,\u201d he writes. \u201cHe is aiming at preserving our children\u2019s future directly. He is not popular with the democratic establishment because unlike all the other candidates, he is not pandering to the industries accelerating Earth\u2019s Climate Crisis, the end of the world as we know it. He is truly fighting for the USA. His initials are BS. Not his policies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GYT8yc3bf1k?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Somewhat ironically, Trump is a big fan of Young\u2019s music. In 2008, <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> phoned up Trump after noticing him at three of Young\u2019s concerts over the past couple of years. At one of them, a CSNY show at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, he sat next to Patti Smith and Salman Rushdie and stayed for the entire show.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s got something very special,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/neil-youngs-biggest-fan-speaks-his-voice-is-haunting-says-donald-trump-101303\/\">Trump told us<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve listened to his music for years and I\u2019ve seen him before that, but I went to the concert where they were honoring Bob Dylan years ago at Madison Square Garden [Bob Fest 10\/16\/92] and Neil got up and totally brought the house down. There was nobody close. He\u2019s performed for me at my casinos over the years and he just brings it down. I\u2019ve met him on occasions and he\u2019s a terrific guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked to name a single favorite Young song or album, however, Trump was completely stumped. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of all favorite,\u201d he said. \u201cI like the older stuff better, which is typical with a lot of artists \u2014 hence the famous Ricky Nelson song \u2018Garden Party.\u2019 I like all his songs, you know, \u2018Rock and Roll\u2019 \u2014 just great stuff. \u2026 Whatever the hell \u2018it\u2019 is, he\u2019s got it.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-contextual-player\">\n<h3> Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/neil-young-letter-trump-954835\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neil Young has never hidden his contempt for Donald Trump, but now that he\u2019s officially an American citizen, he raising his voice even louder. \u201cYou are a disgrace to my country,\u201d Young writes in a long, scathing open letter to Trump on his Neil Young Archives website. \u201cYour mindless destruction of our shared natural resources, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-804358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-22 06:31:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}