Dear Kid ...

An open letter to the star of the alternative Super Bowl show.

Dear Kid Rock,

To quote Inigo Montoya, “You seem a decent fellow.”

You want people to be free. That’s clear in that song of yours - Don’t Tell Me How to Live. (Sorry that some people confused it with a Weird Al parody.)

You want people to disagree with respect. That’s clear in that video you made with Sean Penn. You also performed at Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity. (We need another one of those, don’t you think?)

You want people to see common ground. That’s clear in Cowboy, where you say, “I ain’t straight outta Compton, I’m straight out the trailer.” Brilliant line. You’re showing people that a lot of us come from tough situations, and we make the best of it.

Unfortunately, you’ve aligned yourself with a political movement that feels exactly the opposite.

They don’t want people to be free. They want to toss refugees back to the lands from which they fled. They don’t want scientists to study climate change or anything else that might affect their business interests. They’ve come after transgender rights and may come for gay rights next -- and we’re talking not about trans people’s rights to play sports but their rights to exist with the name of their choosing and a passport that reflects their gender. They want to stamp out “DEI,” not just in terms of hiring practices but in terms of simply teaching people about different cultures.

They don’t want people to disagree with respect. They’ve created propaganda, sometimes using AI, to try to make people doubt what they can see with their own eyes. They threaten journalists who call them out on their lies. Donald Trump spoke at Charlie Kirk’s funeral and said he, unlike Kirk, doesn’t wish his political opponents well. They’ve cracked down on dissenting voices on Israel and Gaza.

And they don’t seek common ground. They trade on hatred and scapegoats. If they can blame trans people for anything, they will. They scream about immigrant crime, even though the facts show immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than people like you and me whose families have been in this country for a while. They’re wiping out Black history.

Now they’ve hired you to play at a “All-American” halftime show. The implication is that Bad Bunny is not a real American, even though he was born in Puerto Rico, which is part of the United States.

I know a lot of people on “the left” can be bullies as well. They may call you an idiot. Or worse. It’s unfortunate, but there are bad guys in every movement.

But there are good guys as well. I’ve found over the years that “the left” wants little more than basic rights for everyone. They include health care in those rights, and every other country in the free democratic world has managed to make that work and be more cost-effective than our system. They believe people will have more freedom to innovate if there’s a safety net to catch them if they fail. You may disagree with how these things are implemented, as is absolutely your right. But the intent is good.

Unfortunately, the intent in the MAGA movement is not good. It is fundamentally a movement based on hate. It’s corrupt, and we’re losing tax money now that a lot of the regulators who levy fines and make people pay back ill-gotten money have been let go. They say they’re saving you money. They’re not.

If you want to learn more about all these things, I’d suggest checking with sites like FactCheck.org and Snopes.com. They fight to stop “alternative facts.” You might also try a service like Ground News, which shows you how different news organizations report differently.

I respect your values. I would respectfully suggest that I respect your values more than the people with whom you’ve aligned. I hope you’ll come back and join the growing crowds who are opposing authoritarianism. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but they will.

Cheers,