Have you seen a photo of rock music legend Bruce Springsteen wearing a t-shirt that says “Keep America Trumpless”? It’s gone viral on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, with people of all political stripes weighing in. But the image is fake. Springsteen never wore such a shirt.
“The Boss has a message for the ex-boss,” X user David Cay Johnson wrote on the social media platform, including a photo of Springsteen seemingly wearing the anti-Trump shirt.
The original unaltered photo was taken in New York on October 12, 2017 during opening night for Springsteen on Broadway, performed at the Walter Kerr Theatre, as you can see below. The image was captured by Kevin Mazur and distributed by Getty Images.
The fake image has been seen by over half a million people at the time of this writing and hasn’t received an annotation from Community Notes, the crowdsourced fact-checking program at X.
But even though the image is fake that doesn’t mean Springsteen is a fan of Trump. Trump famously used Springsteen’s song “Born in the U.S.A.” at his rallies but the legendary rock artist objected very publicly. Springsteen was critical of the former president even before Trump took office in 2017, calling him a “moron” and “a tragedy for our democracy,” according to Rolling Stone.
Springsteen was consistent throughout Trump’s presidency in criticizing the man, even before the insurrectionist riots of January 6, 2021 that were an attempt to stop the certification of the electoral vote count in Congress.
“A good portion of our fine country, to my eye, has been thoroughly hypnotized, brainwashed by a con man from Queens,” Springsteen on his radio show in 2020.
“You mix in some jingoism, some phony patriotism, fear of a Black planet, vanity, narcissism, paranoia, conspiracy theories and a portion of our nation undergoing mass delusions and teetering on violence, and you’re left with the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime. How did he do it?” Springsteen continued.
But Americans haven’t necessarily seen the last of Trump, who’s currently the overwhelming favorite to become the Republican nominee. Trump is currently favored, with 68% of Republicans wanting him to be the nominee, according to a poll released on Thursday by Messenger/Harris. Florida governor Ron DeSantis is the second favorite with 9% and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley is the third preference with just 7%. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has just 4%, according to the same poll.
And Trump may even do better in the general election, if the most recent polls are to be believed. One poll conducted November 22-28 found Trump led Joe Biden 46% to 42%. Obviously there’s still 11 months until the general election. But if something doesn’t change pretty dramatically with American attitudes, Trump could very well become not just the 45th president, but the 47th president of the United States, no matter how The Boss may feel about it.
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