Born In The USA

BORN IN THE USA
Written and performed by Richard Vegrettte

In recent years, political debate has become increasingly polarised and intolerant. Defeated parties in elections have taken to the streets to riot in Brazil and America, and in New Zealand, a universally lauded Prime Minister has resigned, amid rumours of emotional stress caused by online hate and threats. “We’ve forgotten how to disagree”, complained Jennifer O’Connell in the Irish Times in autumn 2021, reflecting on the violent schisms of the Trump era as well as homophobic protests against the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar. 

Yet, is this anger so new? The mining communities that I lived near during the 1980s were torn apart by industrial strife and a devastating year-long strike from which they never recovered. In 1960s America, student protestors were slaughtered on their campus by armed police every bit as ruthlessly as George Floyd was in 2020. What is new, however, is the populist voice that claims to represent the disaffected and politically homeless. It is brazen, unfiltered, uncompromising and direct. And in America 70 million people voted for it in 2020. 

In the UK in 2019, those same mining communities, in the wake of Brexit, voted in their millions for the party largely held responsible for their demise. Just before that election, I watched the Ken Burns documentary series, The Vietnam War. I was struck, not only by how much of a working-class man’s war it was, but also, by how some of the veterans still felt the sense of betrayal they had felt in the immediate aftermath of the war.