THE POWER OF THE FRONT MAN

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WHATEVER THE FRONT MAN SAYS OR DOES GIVES LICENSE TO THOSE IN THE CROWD. A CERTAIN BAND USED TO PLAY AT THE CONTINENTAL CLUB IN AUSTIN, WHERE MY BAND AND I REGULARLY PLAY WHEN WE’RE HOME. WHEN THEY PLAYED, A WOMAN DANCED NAKED, OR VERY NEARLY NAKED, BEHIND A SCREEN ON WHICH A LIGHT THREW HER SHADOW TO THE FULL VIEW OF THE AUDIENCE. SOME OF THE STAFF THAT WORKED THOSE SHOWS ARE STILL WORKING AT THE CLUB. THEY TELL ME THAT DURING THOSE SHOWS SOME OF THE MEN IN THE AUDIENCE BECAME UNUSUALLY AND UNCOMFORTABLY AGGRESSIVE TOWARD THE WOMEN IN THE AUDIENCE. I THOUGHT THAT WAS TERRIBLE.  

Years later, while touring through Utah, someone gave me a small sticker that read “I love Mormon pussy.” It actually employed the symbol for a heart, rather than the word “love.” I thought it was funny as hell. I put the sticker on my ESP Telecaster. My label thought it was funny as hell, and put a picture of it on my website. After we got home, we resumed our regular residency at the Continental Club. Some of the staff soon reported that some of the men in the audience were becoming unusually and uncomfortably aggressive toward the women in the audience at my shows. I took the sticker off the guitar and had the label take the picture off the website and that shit quit happening. I didn’t feel so morally superior to that certain band after that.

When Donald Trump said he’d like to punch someone in the mouth, he knew there was a good chance someone would get sucker punched at one of his rallies, and someone did. Donald said it was ok, so someone believed him and made it happen. When Trump said some of the Second Amendment people could do something about Hillary, he increased the odds of Clinton getting shot at and he knew it full well. He’s a front man and he knows the power of the front man. For Trump to deny that he’s inciting violence is beyond full of shit.

But let’s just say, for the sake of devil’s advocacy, that Trump actually was speaking metaphorically, as his spinners say he was. Even if he was speaking metaphorically when calling for the assassination of his rival, he was still criminally negligent because he said those words from the podium. He said those words as a front man, speaking to his millions of followers, many of whom, statistically speaking, are unlikely to understand or even care that their Messiah was speaking metaphorically. Some people don’t get metaphor at all, so anything one says from the podium to an audience of millions must be taken at face value. Trump has crossed the line into unabashed thuggery and is dragging our electoral process down to the level of Augusto Pinochet, Idi Amin, and Joseph Stalin. He should share a room with them somewhere, metaphorically speaking of course.

- James McMurtry