Rolling Stone did a lovely interview with Joan Baez, who is still kicking ass and taking names. She’s a grandmother, she paints, she’s still political and she still makes music. She’s released a new protest song, “One in a Million,” but when speaking to RS about the state of American politics, she sounds like she has little hope that the United States can ever be repaired. There are also her first comments about A Complete Unknown, the early-years Bob Dylan biopic which earned eight Oscar nominations. One of those nominations was for Monica Barbaro, who played the young Baez. You can read the full RS piece here. Some highlights:
On Trump’s reelection: “Surprised the sh-t out of me. Nobody could have dreamed this up. Nobody could have predicted that it would turn into what it’s turned into, because that’s for other countries, the “sh-thole countries.” This is turning into a sh-thole country because of them. It’s all the evil things that sh-thole countries do. On the other hand, we’ve all sort of known that the Heritage Foundation has been plugging away and making plans, and we just weren’t prepared….the truth is it’s been in the works for 50 years. It’s not even about Trump. He just turned out to be this wizard of a disgusting human being who gives people the right to do what he does.
What’s surprised her this time around: “In the first 100 days, sending people like that [snaps fingers] to prisons known for torture. All the work I did in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and the Eastern Bloc, and it’s the same mechanism, with all the ruthlessness and the steps to the dictatorship. I’m worried about the speed at which they’re doing it and where they’re going, and the horrible cruelty that takes place every day. I really appreciated Bruce Springsteen repeating “It’s happening now” [during his concerts in the U.K.]. Because you tend to say, “Oh, it’s going to be a rough four years.” No, it’s now.”
Her granddaughter is going to law school: “My beautiful granddaughter Jasmine is a singer-songwriter but decided she wanted to be a lawyer. She’ll be going to law school in August, and I’m thinking, “What a time!” She wants to be a constitutional lawyer. We’re not going to have a f–king Constitution very likely. So, all I can do with my son and my granddaughter is walk through this day by day and encourage her to do what she’s doing.
Whether there could be a pendulum swing after Trump: “[Soberly] This is different. I don’t know how you make up for what’s already been done.”
She reached out to the ‘Complete Unknown’ actors: “Are you kidding? I reached out to them, to the actors: “Would they like to talk to me?” So, Monica called, and then Ed Norton. They both had long conversations with me. Monica said, “If you like it, please tell me. But don’t tell me if you didn’t like it.” I said, “Listen, if we don’t like it, we’ll throw popcorn at the screen, but I think we’ll probably like it.”
She heavily praises Monica Barbaro and even mentions that Monica studied and correctly imitated some of her little nervous tics. Baez also thought Timmy Chalamet was great as Dylan, but she thought he looked too clean – her memory of Dylan at that time was that he rarely bathed (ew). As for what Baez says about the current political situation… she’s saying that we’re f–ked. The part about her granddaughter broke my heart – “We’re not going to have a f–king Constitution very likely. So, all I can do with my son and my granddaughter is walk through this day by day and encourage her to do what she’s doing.” Exactly – we’re so profoundly f–ked, but people still have to try and hope that we can change things or do something to end this trauma.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- Celebrities at ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ Studios. Featuring: Joan Baez When: 12 Apr 2023 Credit: Darla Khazei/INSTARimages
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- New York special screening ‘Joan Baez I Am A Noise’ at the Film Forum. Featuring: Joan Baez Where: New York, United States When: 06 Oct 2023 Credit: Dave Allocca/Starpix/Startraksphoto.com
She is only the second person after VP Harris to make the point that this horrible fascist agenda has been in the making for decades. They needed an empty vessel like Trump to implement it and along he came. All those years we spent thinking “mainstream” Republicans couldn’t get any worse, then they did the thing with a reality TV star. I feel so stupid for dismissing Trump when he first came down the escalator. Now we’ve had ten years of this nightmare and it’s only getting worse.
Same. I laughed and said “no way” when my kids asked in 2016 if Trump could possibly be elected. And I was the chump who said to my friends on election night 2016 that “normal” Republican would help keep Trump in check.
It will never not astonish me that the right has been playing this long game for so long, including its takeover of media platforms to get their propaganda to the masses, and there has been no plan to counter it. There STILL seems to be no plan to counter it. Any of it.
Minority communities have had alternative media — from newspapers and magazines to internet options that counter the mainstream and less mainstream propaganda — for centuries. Many perennially make explicit links between understanding and action — grounded in social and political realities. Perhaps as more people understand that what they’re being fed IS propaganda, more people will seek these alternatives out, support them, and share them more widely.
FWIW: Even some ostensibly mainstream publications like the TeenVogue site are doing an excellent job of keeping the public informed.
Teen Vogue’s last EIC while they still did a print magazine was Elaine Welteroth and she intentionally introduced a focus on politics and social justice. No surprise she is 1/2 AA. She’s a pretty amazing lady! Glad to hear they’re keeping it up on their YT channel. Will go check it out!
I just got finished reading two books, back to back, about the 1920s kkk and how it rode to huge political power out of nowhere and then virtually disappeared within 5 years. They wanted the presidency then, and almost every single R talking point now is word for word from the kkk rhetoric then. These books were written well before this storm, it just exposes how long these snakes have been plotting this, pre WW2. The most chilling quote I read was from the #2 guy who made the Indiana chapter the largest in the country. He said, I didn’t sell them on hate, just being true Americans. He was convicted of violently r*ping and biting a woman so severely all over her body the blood poisoning contributed to her death.
And one of his innovations was bribing evangelical pastors to endorse them from the pulpit.
none of us bathed much back then. maybe a swipe to the privates. dirty feet, hairy pits, greasy hair. arome de naturel was a thing.
I never minded it much, except I ALWAYS had to have clean hands. that was important then, and just as much now. the one part that’s different is that people knew to clean their a$$ properly, not like these bros today who think it’s gay.
I’m from that era and believe you me, I bathed every day. To say “none of us” is ridiculous. Nobody I knew did the “arome de naturel” thing.
Republicans did start attacking public education 50 years ago. She is right. They have been playing the long game. James Madison said that the republic would fall with an uneducated populace. Here we are.
I knew after Ronald Reagan was elected things were going to go downhill. It was more apparant when George H. W Bush was and after George W Bush I remember thinking we were already.
Toni Morrison Lists the 10 Steps That Lead Countries to Fascism (1995) Lots of people were aware if you were paying attention.
https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/toni-morrison-lists-the-10-steps-that-lead-to-fascism.html
She is very right. There is a good Arte documentary (at least in Germany reuploaded to YouTube) about the rise of the far-right in the US and this details about how this has been in the works – for decades. So while this is really interesting and educational it scared me even more because a) it’s not just a symptom of the times but carefully planned and deeply part of the structures (means it won’t just go away) and that no one from the democratic, left and progressive side had and has any real idea what to do about this.
Exactly. I just commented above that it’s become clear that no one has a plan to deal with this. We are utterly helpless in the face of this train wreck that has been unfolding for ages.
I agree, it’s ingrained in our social, political, and economic structures. Until those are dismantled and replaced we are screwed. It’s not just a matter of replacing a few bad actors.
Of COURSE Joan GETS IT!
All 57 years of my life…because it SEEMS as if it I were INUDATED with horrific geopolitics IN UTERO..😱
I have watched the Republican Party become MORE cruel & inhumane while the WHITE MALE POLITICIANS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY became more WEAK AND COMPLICIT! And now here we are…because the ONE THING that Rachel Maddow has dedicated her LIFE too when NOT appearing on that 🤬🤬🤬 news station she works for is ACURATELY DOCUMENTING how fascism has ALWAYS been strong in American politics & have ALWAYS been able to thrive because what BOTH parties have in common is a LETHAL DOSE OF WHITE SUPREMACY…and HISTORY has shown humanity that even a LITTLE bit of White Supremacy is DEADLY to ANY society!😡
A focus group of voters was told in the 2000s about the plans Republicans had put forward to destroy Medicare and Medicaid and social security, and they didn’t believe what they were told.
White privilege allows them to believe it.
Sure 50 years if you’re not counting slavery, Jim Crow, and the electoral college.
Fair point
YEP.
I’ve heard it said that the U.S. didn’t actually become a democracy until the 1960s, when the civil rights act was passed. That was … 60 years ago.
Yup. And nanoseconds after the Brown v Board of Ed ruling and after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, concerted efforts to destroy them politically and socially sprang up.
The horror and shock that some people are displaying now seems disingenuous to me, although perhaps a better way to view it is for me to understand that people who were secure in their own privileges are only now realizing how tenuous and fragile some of those privileges actually are.
tldr: Black Americans and other minorities have long experienced “the horrible cruelty that takes place every day,” And people like Baez have long raised their voices in protest. The only difference now is that the cruelties are spreading —and impacting people who were formerly protected from some of them.
DING DING DING
She’s not wrong. I think this can all be traced back to Nixon being pardon—it set the precedent for other Presidents to be held unaccountable for their actions while in office. (Reagan and Iran-Contra Affair comes to mind.)
If Nixon had been forced to go to trail for his crimes, the Heritage Foundation would have had a much more difficult time enacting its agenda.
I agree with this strongly. Although, I would say there was an even earlier precedent for failing to hold criminals and traitors to account: the end of the Civil War, and the failure of Reconstruction. But yes, as you said, it’s a refusal to hold our leaders to account.
It can be traced by further, but, yeah, Nixon was a bad example to set.
Joan lives up the road and she entertained at our local No Kings gathering. She is fine and good as well as so very talented.
Those who aren’t from the Palo Alto – Woodside area don’t know how accessible Joan Baez is and always has been. She’s like a beloved member of the family. I grew up there, used to see her shopping at the Stanford Shopping Center (especially Saks), had a high school friend who hung out at her center for non- violence ( can’t recall the exact name but it was a Victorian house). A neighbor activist family were good pals with her. My father worked with hers. Joan Baez is so much a part of that area.
😍
Her father is Mexican, from Puebla. She and Linda Rondstand are two American music stars with roots in Mexico/Mexican culture who have a huge comprehension and compassion of the Hispanic immigrant situation.
So sad about many people’s views, half of my white Mexican American relatives are brainwashed now too. Taught to hate.
Adding some Joan Baez songs to my Juneteenth playlist. 🫶🏽🗽✨
Read the book about Opus Dei by Gareth Gore, the fascist takeover has been in the works for at least 50 years by them, the Heritage Foundation and the writers of Project 2025. They’re all deeply intertwined and have a LOT of money backing them.
Exactly, Joan Baez! Fifty years in the making. Trump is the logical conclusion to Reagan.
As a foreigner looking in. I would be very surprised if there was another legitimate, non tampered presidential election after dump reaches the end of his term. With the way things are going and dump and his goons having carte blanche to do what they want without regard to proper procedure and law, who’s to say they will not rip up the constitution and just keep themselves in that post. Congress and Senate aren’t doing what they should be doing. There are no more checks and balances. 🤷🏻♀️
As an American, I hate to agree with you but I do. Trump did tell us, after all, that if you vote for him we would never have to vote again!
She’s a national treasure. I hope she’s wrong about our bleak future.
Every word, Joan. Every word. That is exactly what I’ve been saying about that “sh*thole countries” remark Trump made – how utterly ironic it is that he immediately started turning the U.S. into a sh*thole country. He isn’t going to lay off until the U.S. is nothing but a heap of 💩. As long as Mar-a-Lago is covered in gold, who cares. In my opinion, he’ll be on his vengeance tour for the remainder of his life because 1. we didn’t re-elect him in 2020 and 2. much of the rest of the world mocked him.
May grace walk with her.
And with us.
💙💙💔💙 #Resist