You probably didn’t catch Toby Keith’s performance at Donald Trump’s Inauguration concert. Toby Keith performed “Beer for my horses.” He sang:
Take all the rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree,
Round up all them bad boys hang them high in the street
For all the people to see…
Send ’em all to their maker and he’ll settle ’em down
You can bet he’ll set ’em down…
Who are the “bad boys” to be lynched? It’s you. It’s African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Gay Americans, Jewish Americans, middle class Americans, feminist Americans, liberal Americans, progressive Americans, any American who does not tow the Trump line. It’s you.
You might be tempted to just chalk it up to, “You can’t trust these people” and think that your distrust is enough. “These people” are the alt-right, the White Nationalists, the Tea Party, the Radical Right and those opportunistic Republicans who have lost their conservative bearings. I say that you can trust these people. They mean what they say.
This song is not metaphor. It is a message.
Countless times in the last several years I have seen responses to blog posts by liberals or Democrats or just plain people in which the writer promised that they would be hunted down and killed once the radical right came to power. I think they are sincere.
The President sat and smiled as Toby Keith sang his lynching song. He smiled because he understood the message, the promise, and the threat.
If you are thinking of remaining silent or staying on the sidelines, think of that “tall oak tree” waiting for you. Think of the people in Germany in the 1930s who thought that the National Socialists would not do exactly what they said they would do.
Submitted by Mike Pfeiffer, WCD Member