As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump held campaign rallies that tended to feature a specific song: the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” The band reportedly asked him to stop, and the Republican ignored the appeal.
It always seemed like an odd selection for Trump, in part because it’s an import from non-American artists — which seemed to clash with his “America First,” anti-immigration posture — and in part because the title implied he wasn’t necessarily the voters’ first choice.
After Election Day 2016 came and went, and Trump events continued to feature the song, it took on new meaning: the president who came in second in the popular vote wasn’t the leader Americans wanted, but he apparently wanted to signal to the electorate that in our system, voters don’t always get what they want.
Yesterday, however, a new theme song for the Trump era emerged. It came to the fore when the president visited a Honeywell factory in Phoenix that’s manufacturing millions of N95 masks — Trump, of course, did not wear a mask to the mask-making facility — which featured a notable song over the loudspeaker.
At one point during his tour, the Guns N’ Roses cover of the James Bond movie song “Live and Let Die” was being blasted from the factory’s PA system, as workers performed their tasks.
No, seriously.
When I first saw the video, I initially thought it was a rather macabre joke, but apparently it actually happened. As Jimmy Kimmel joked, “I can think of no better metaphor for this presidency than Donald Trump not wearing a face mask to a face mask factory while the song ‘Live and Let Die’ blares in the background.”
To be sure, I rather doubt that the White House advance team had anything to do with the musical selection. What’s more, it may have simply been an extraordinary coincidence that the president who’s prepared to accept widespread deaths during a pandemic was treated to “Live and Let Die” while touring a mask manufacturing facility without a mask.
As Rachel put it at the end of last night’s show, “Sometimes the universe is too on point for me.”
