Why Springsteen's hypocritical Super Bowl ad didn't fool me

While the rest of the world was breathlessly swooning over the magnificent portraiture that is the middle of the country and drooling over Springsteen‘s message of unity, I saw right through it.

I’m a fan of Springsteen‘s music and always have been and I am, luckily, able to separate the men from the music. For if not, I would be missing a catalog of what is now the American songbook and one of the most prolific and important songwriters of this age.

But let it be known: Through no fault of his own, he is a walking oxymoron.

His longingly shot commercial claims to extol the virtues of unity, yet Bruce’s kind of unity is conditional. It means we all unite on one side of the aisle or we do not unite at all. As a matter of fact, as recently as a few years ago, Springsteen anointed himself the leader of the “new American revolution.” That’s the antithesis of unity.

Now the message of the ad, (for Jeep vehicles, for those of you who may have missed it,) is to “reUnite” the country. To meet In the “middle.” But how? When Bruce and his ilk did everything he could to provoke anger and divisiveness until he got what he wanted: Trump out of office.

Like a lot of lefties, Springsteen wants the Kumbaya only when we are all unified and in lockstep with the “proper” way of thinking. But it’s not his fault. Like a lot of guilty rich people, his life and his ideology are are oxymoronic.

For instance, the preaching of Springsteen‘s music has always spoken to the futility of the life of a working man, yet he has never been one.

It’s spoken to the abject hopelessness of veterans returning from war, yet he has never been one.

It speaks of the plight of victims of police brutality, yet he has enough money to hire his own personal National Guard to secure his property and loved ones if he so chooses.

He advocates for Democratic candidates but yet has no idea what it feels like to have that huge chunk of money taken out of his paycheck to pay for the big government spending that they support.

He, like a lot of other extremely wealthy musicians, no longer sees the world through a prism that can be shifted to allow for different perspectives. Because he does not live in a world of reality, he no longer understands what reality is for most of us. Therefore, he cannot truly speak for most of us even though he may profess to do so.

So it’s not the first or the last time that Springsteen will be hypocritical. Just like the rest of the bourgeoisie that he wishes he were not a part of but in fact is, he kicked and railed and screamed and tantrumed his way through this administration, promoting disunity every step of the way, even stating at one point that he thought it was time for an “exorcism” in our nation’s Capital.

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The jeep ad was an ode to centrism when he’s the furthest thing from a centrist—an ode to unity when the true goal is to unite us all in groupthink toward the radical ideology of the left. Searingly beautiful scenery aside, the message is there for all to see: “Now that the bad guy is gone, let’s unite.. but not in the middle... on the far left.”
His false cry for unity was completely transparent to people like me who THINK as well as emote.

Again, I don’t fault him for this. And I will still listen to his heartbreakingly sweet and poignant music and lyrics and love them. I just don’t interpret it as a message of truth. It’s music. It’s fantasy. That’s what art should be. So to all you Springsteen fans who feel compelled, as I do, to hate him a little (or a lot), remember: It’s art. Art does not have to be the truth.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Judi Franco. Any opinions expressed are Judi's own.