Overtures for the Triumph of the Tweet: White Power Music and the Alt-Right in 2016

• Published in: New Political Science 2017-04, Vol.39 (2), p.277-282
• Main Author: Luke, Timothy W.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Deindustrialization; Globalization; Music; Political culture; Political movements; Popular culture; Post Cold War period; Racism; Right wing politics; Separatism; Trade agreements; White people
• ISSN: 0739-3148; 1469-9931
• DOI: 10.1080/07393148.2017.1301323

The role of music in contemporary culture and politics as a tool for mobilizing popular resistance against states, corporations, and other political movements is brought expertly into focus by Nancy Love in this remarkable book about white power music and the future of democracy in the United States of America (USA). The complex and varied evolution of heavy metal rock, skinhead punk, feminist soul, redneck rock, gangster rap, Christian country, or transgressive industrial music genres during and after the economic crises of the 1970s have registered angry sonic protests against nearly five decades of economic stagnation endured by the many as well as outrageous affluence being enjoyed at the same time by a few. Such developments in cultural politics are not unprecedented in American history. Middle-class white folk music and black gospel music communities were integral parts of the Civil Rights era struggles to end Jim Crow in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s. Similarly, anti-war protest rock and pro-conservative country western music provided anthems for the radical counterculture and hardhat conservatives who feuded in song and on the streets during the 1960s and 1970s over America's disastrous wars in Indochina. Nonetheless, as these decades of degradation unfolded for many working and lower middle class white communities, ideologies of white separatism and supremacy crystallized out of the despoliation of deindustrialization, globalization, and marginalization, particularly after the Cold War ended in 1991. The loss of traditional manufacturing jobs with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the dot-com bust, and then the 2008 Great Recession devastated the economic lives of many Americans. Yet, the biggest blows often fell on industries, regions, and states where white workers had once enjoyed a bigger piece of the American Dream. White power music is one of the more troubling aspects of their pushback against these decades of downward mobility and political neglect.