Amanda Palmer, a musician who The Guardian recently described as a “cult cabaret artist” — and far be it from me to add to that neat label — made some comments about President-Elect Trump and punk rock that struck a nerve with many. Of course, comments about Trump have been coming hard and fast ever since he unexpectedly won the presidency back in November, but hers are what some might qualify as “a reach.”
As The Guardian points out, while speaking at a press conference in Australia, Queensland to be exact, at Woodford Folk festival, Palmer made the following statements:
“It’s been a really scary time in America. I don’t know how it’s felt over here [in Australia] for the past few months, but it’s a total sh*t show over there. Especially if you’re an artist, a woman, a minority, gay — anything but a rich white man — it’s really very scary. But being an optimist … there is this part of me — especially having studied Weimar Germany extensively — I’m like, ‘This is our moment.’ Donald Trump is going to make punk rock great again. We’re all going to crawl down staircases into basements and speakeasies and make amazing satirically political art. If the political climate keeps getting uglier, the art will have to answer. We will have to fight. It’s already happening — the artists in my tribes have been like, ‘Alright. This is not good.’ We are sharpening our knives for a large buffet.”
Directly following this assertion, Palmer shared that she and her husband, a 56-year-old British writer named Neil Gaiman, will be living in Australia for the duration of Trump’s term. The Australian government has granted the couple distinguished talent visas good for five years, so they will be living in the country during that time.
According to Palmer, the couple applied for the visas long before Trump emerged:
“We started this [visa application] process long before the specter of Donald Trump, before his orange head was even a speck on the horizon of our lives. We have a brand new baby, who’s a year old, and I’ve been looking around at the world, the political climate, the art scenes, my friends, our whole situation, trying to figure out where we should land. And Australia does look pretty tasty.”
So, in summary, aside from her describing the potential rise of unrest and oppression in America as a “buffet” for artists, who historically suffer enormous setbacks, further oppression, financial losses, imprisonment and even death for speaking out, Palmer herself will be bowing out of any potential consequences that artists living in the United States might face for creating such art. There is much to be discussed about whether punk rock is currently “great,” has been “great,” or will return to being “great,” but the flippant way Palmer has spun the presidency of Trump — all while ducking out on living in the country during this time — left many with a bad taste in their mouth.
The thing is that #amandapalmer seems to say it will be fun to fight against Trump. But it won't. Not for sick people.
— Sylvie Denis (@jardinsvirtuels) December 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/814466568713367552
amanda palmer, calmly observing a mass murder: sad, but perhaps someday sufjan stevens will write a tender song about this https://t.co/uVo0jn2Zsx
— daniel (@hey_whats_sup) December 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/stavvers/status/814524340893007872
https://twitter.com/snooksarmy/status/814537226608463872
Wouldn't it be nice if Amanda Palmer supported all the revolutionary artists taking on Trump by paying her musicians?
— Kayleigh Donaldson (@Ceilidhann) December 29, 2016
That last tweet is a reference to Palmer’s history of asking musicians to work with her for free after successfully crowdfunding her album. Because, of course, the real problem with her statements is that her position as a wealthy, independent artist who has the ability to leave the country is at odds with the people who have the most to lose if Trump follows up on his policies of immigrant deportation, creating a Muslim registry, the restriction of birth control and abortion, and conversion therapy for members of the LGBTQ community that his running mate Mike Pence has adamantly supported. Would a couple good punk rock albums be enough to balance the effects of these policies out? I vote that they would not, and I don’t think oppression necessarily means great art will crop up to counter it.
At least, Palmer does seem to acknowledge her privilege a bit when she discussed feeling guilty for not attending the Women’s March on Washington, a national protest to be held on inauguration day.
“I actually feel quite guilty that I’m not going to be in the States on January 20. I feel like I really should be there in Washington with the millions of other women who are going to give the giant finger to the orange man. But I’ll do what I can from over here.”
