MUSICIAN Jeff Crandall has posted a song to mark the events in Minnesota and ICE. I spoke to him recently. I thank him for his time and the response to the events as well.
https://swallows.bandcamp.com/track/insurrection-song
I think we all know that Minnesota is getting a great deal of news
coverage due to the ICE actions and Immigration issues accusations of
corruption. How have you been responding as an artist?
I think I’ve been responding like many people in the state - as a
citizen first. Even though this type of abuse of power is something I’ve
been concerned about for several years, it is still shocking when it
winds up happening in your own backyard. Over the past few weeks, I’ve
spent quite a bit of time just trying to understand the extent of what
is going on and also trying to understand what the politically strategic
point of the surge is. I think we all expected that there would be more
aggressive immigration enforcement efforts under this administration,
but Metro Surge is something entirely different.
What we are witnessing in Minnesota is a very serious erosion of civil
rights - not just those of undocumented immigrants but also those of
United States citizens and other legal residents of the state. It is a
very dangerous and unprecedented situation that is now spreading to
other cities, and it is clearly by design. The Trump administration is
using existing laws to justify the tactics that are being used on the
ground; however, they are playing semantic games to circumvent the
actual intent and limits of those laws. In doing so, they are violating a
whole litany of individual rights that are guaranteed under the Bill of
Rights.
Although I follow politics fairly closely in my everyday life, I
generally choose to not directly address political issues in my lyrics. I
generally prefer to write about things that are less topical in nature,
but when things hit this close to home, it is hard to just sit on the
sidelines and remain a dispassionate observer.
I’ve always understood that there was going to be a moment in a second
Trump administration when we would all be tested, because I’ve never
believed that he would give up power easily a second time. I don’t like
to react to everything that Trump or his administration does, but when
it comes down to the administration routinely violating the
constitution, attempting to instigate violence and mayhem in the
streets, and lying about it in such an obvious manner, one can’t help
but react to it and start speaking out about it.
And when you see your friends and other Minnesotans putting themselves
at risk to document these abuses of power and to help other Minnesotans
in need, you really feel a need to do something - to get off the
sidelines and participate. I’m a songwriter, so one of the things I’m
naturally going to do is express what I’m feeling about all of this
through music. To write a song or attend a protest is just a small
gesture of support for the monumental efforts of others that I’m
witnessing all around the state.
Knowing Swallows and other related bands are Minnesotan, do you as
artists invite so called cancellation or notoriety if you respond?
Sure, there is a risk to speaking out and flying our flag. But what are
artists to do in a situation like this? Protest is a legitimate and
important part of artistic expression and, among other things, it is the
duty of the artist to report and respond to reality. It comes with the
territory. I don’t mean to alienate anyone, but when the
insurrectionists are literally in charge of the government and the laws
of the nation are being ignored or stretched beyond comprehension by
those who have sworn an oath to upholding those laws, the house is on
fire, metaphorically speaking. So, that’s where we are right now. Our
nation is on fire. Are we supposed to ignore this reality and pretend
that it isn’t so?
I think most of us would agree that we’d prefer that it hadn’t come to
this, but it has, and now we have to respond before we lose our
democracy. The people will have to save American democracy; our
institutions are failing one by one at the task of holding the line
against the creeping authoritarianism we are currently living through.
So, the citizens of the country are going to need to vote every day with
our voices and with our bodies to protect the democracy. The laws and
courts will follow, but those processes move slowly, and Trump
administration is fully taking advantage of the slow wheels of justice.
So, the people of the nation will need to slow down the Trump
administration’s attack on democracy long enough for our institutions to
catch up. 2026 will be the year we either save or lose our country.
That is what is on the line right now. Even if we make it through the
midterms and have “free and fair” elections, there will still be a
struggle to preserve the democracy. But the midterm elections are the
first goal post we have to reach.
There comes a time when you have to decide which side of history you
want to be on, and I think we’ve passed a point of no return where if
you don’t pick a side, a side will be picked for you. I’d rather make it
clear where I stand before my silence becomes a part of the problem. I
don’t want to be coopted by this administration, and I don’t want to
allow the fear of retribution or blowback make my decisions for me.
Right now, I may suffer some minor inconvenience for exercising my first
amendment rights, but if we don’t fight to save our democracy now, the
penalty for speaking up could be far worse in a few months or years. It
is just that kind of moment. I don’t think this is even remotely a
close call at this point. If the first amendment wasn’t created for a
moment like this, then what the hell is it for?
How can people outside the state do something to help?
People outside of the state can learn from and replicate what the people
of Minnesota are doing here. I don’t necessarily think they need to
come here because ICE and border patrol will likely be coming to them
soon enough. They can add their voices and their support - as they have
been doing. This pressure campaign by the Trump administration is going
to spread, especially in the swing states and blue-leaning states. So,
other impacted states are going to need to get organized to keep up the
public pressure campaign to expose what the administration is actually
doing and to show their support by protesting in the streets. Visibility
is very important. The administration won’t stop until the bottom falls
out on their support and Republicans in congress finally step in to
save themselves from a catastrophe. Republicans should be very worried
about what is happening right now. They just lost a gerrymandered seat
in Texas to a Democrat by a landslide and there were more Republicans
who voted in that race than Democrats. It is just one of the signs of a
seismic shift in public support against the administration. At the same
time, though, if Trump starts to feel cornered, he will strike out in
other ways, so we all need to stay vigilant and try to do what we all
can to curtail his most destructive impulses.
So, we are in a race against time to get to the midterm elections. Trump
doesn’t believe Republicans can hold the house without extreme measures
to change the outcome of the election. So, he will continue to push to
create some sort of situation where he can interfere with the elections
in some way - or perhaps in many ways. People in other states need to be
protecting their state processes to ensure that they can have free and
fair elections in their states. They need to resist the temptation to
react violently to Trump’s attempts to antagonize them. This is not so
much to deter Trump from doing whatever he is going to do, but instead
to make sure he and his administration continue to look like the
aggressors and the ones who are way out of line with traditional
American values. Public support is critical, and we need all Americans
who value our constitution and our democracy to join in the non-violent
resistance to this administration. The second things turn to violence in
the streets all bets are off, so people need to keep their wits about
them. These paramilitary officers in our streets are bad enough. It
would be a tragedy for the U.S. Military to be occupying American
cities.
I think that Trump’s plan is to keep up the pressure campaign and expand
it to other states as they hire more ICE agents. They just have to
light a fuse somewhere. But if people can continue to expose the
administration’s unconstitutional tactics and also remain peaceful and
lawful (as much as possible under these extreme circumstances), then
public opinion may crater enough for Republicans to look for a way out.
At least, that is the hope. If Trump can’t be stopped outright, it is
important to take away his power base and make him the lame duck that he
really ought to be. Then, if the Democrats do well in the midterms,
there will at least be some congressional oversight and possibly some
accountability that is missing now.
As some will argue for the legality of what is being done, does
resistance to legal actions by the state threaten future actions, by
making everything "play" at such a high volume nothing has nuance and
understanding?
Yes, of course, this is the intent of the Trump administration. They are
trying to get the general public and especially the MAGA base to
confuse cause and effect. They are also purposefully obfuscating
standing law by calling things what they are not. This has long been a
tactic of political parties, but the purposeful dissemination of
disinformation is on steroids right now. Nuance and understanding are
out the window at this point. For better or worse, symbolism and course
political dialogue is the only thing that will break through the noise
right now. That is why, for instance, the photo of five year old Liam
Conejo Ramos in his blue bunny hat and with his Spider-Man backpack had
much more impact on public opinion than a thousand printed words could
ever have. It serves as a symbol of just how extreme the policies of the
Trump administration have become.
Do I agree with every tactic that is being used by protestors in
Minnesota? I do think there is some risk to feeding the narrative of the
administration when protestors engage in acts of violence or enter
places of worship and things like that. I don’t see those tactics as
being particularly helpful to the cause, which necessarily needs to
expand public outrage to groups that aren’t normally aligned with
progressive politics. This can’t be a moment where the American left
just speaks to its own supporters. That is the mistake the Trump
administration is making, and we should allow them to keep making that
mistake. We should let the Trump administration fail in its overreach
while exposing what they are doing. We need a massive movement to fight
this fight, and I just hope people can keep their heads in the right
place until the job is done. By and large, people are being quite sober
in their approach to this, so I don’t have any major complaints because
the approach seems to be working so far, and the strategy of filming the
agents wherever they are is having a huge impact in terms of public
opinion. I do understand the outrage people feel. We all should be
outraged. But we also have to be smarter than those who would have us
take the bait. Again, I’m very proud that people of Minnesota are not
taking the bait and for everything we are doing to preserve law and
order and to protect our neighbors.
The goal isn’t to win per se, because there is no winning each of these
battles. It is to show up, to show the level of public dissent against
these policies, to document the actions of the officers, and to hold the
line on democracy. There will be mistakes and unfortunate situations
where the protestors do interfere with these operations; however, the
agents are stretching these concepts beyond a reasonable application of
the law. The idea that everything they do is a targeted operation, that
people following them from a distance constitutes interference, that
filming them is a crime worthy of a beating or a death sentence, etc. is
something that those engaging in resistance cannot control. The
protestors can, however, abide by the laws as they have typically been
interpreted in the past. To not resist the occupation at all would be to
capitulate to the Trump administration and allow for these
unconstitutional sweeps and other unlawful activities by federal
officers to go unwitnessed and unreported. And that is not an acceptable
outcome.
Have you done other political works?
When I first started writing songs, many of them were political or
topical in nature. I wrote songs about the United States’ intervention
in Afghanistan in the 1980s, songs about immigration issues between the
United States and Mexico, songs about the treatment of the poor and
homeless in California, songs about racism, songs about the mistreatment
of women, and songs about other current events and topics that were
close to my heart. In many cases, these were songs about things I had
personally experienced or witnessed. Others were about people in
difficult situations who were close to me and some were just taken from
the news.
There was even a brief time in the early 1990s during the first Gulf War
that I was one of the resident protest singers on my college campus at
the University of California, Davis. I played in a duo called The
Simples, and we wrote and sang protest songs against that very
short-lived war. I wrote a pretty decent song called “Supermarket War”
that we played along with some Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger songs at a huge
rally on campus. I think it is still the largest crowd I’ve ever played
for; however, the shelf life for that song wasn’t very long. The war
and the public sentiment against it - even at the university - didn’t
last long enough for me to record the song. I didn’t even have a tape
recorder at the time to capture it.
So, the song was lost to time. I worked hard on that song and it had a
lot of sections and some sharp, evocative lyrics, but it was very
explicitly tied to a war that only lasted a matter of days. After that
experience, I tended to write material that was more self-reflective,
personal, or philosophical in nature. I wanted to write about things
that had more permanence. But I do veer into the political with some of
my songs. I typically write those songs from angles that have more of a
universal message. A recent song I released under my pseudonym J. Briozo
called “All the Innocent” is one of those types of songs. I wrote that
one during the first Trump administration in response to the
demonization of immigrants seeking asylum in the United States. But I
wrote the lyrics to apply to all people rather than making it a specific
polemic against Trump and his politics. I don’t like to write as a
partisan or ideologue. I just think life is more nuanced than that, and I
prefer to think long and hard before I react. I generally write as a
soulful or spiritual humanist, I suppose. I believe in fairness and
human dignity over and against nationalism or religious dogma. In most
cases, I feel like taking dogmatic ideological positions in my writing
would limit my ability to explore deeper truths. And, yet, like I’ve
said, there is a time and a place for being present in the moment and
reporting what you see and hear. So, that is why I wrote “Insurrection
Song.” I knew we were in trouble when the first amendment right to
protest was being characterized as an insurrection by the people who
actually fomented an actual insurrection five years ago.
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