No surprises here: Green Day still isn’t a fan of the red hats. During Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest broadcast last night, lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong took the opportunity to ring in 2024 by taking a dig at former president Donald Trump. While performing the protest song “American Idiot,” Armstrong swapped out the word “redneck” to instead declare, “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda.” Trump is hoping to be re-elected this year, even as some states are trying to block him from the presidential ballot.
This isn’t the first time that Green Day has criticized Trump on stage. In 2019, the band made the same “MAGA agenda” lyric swap at the iHeartRadio Music Festival. They previously asked the audience at the 2016 MTV Europe Music Awards, “Can you hear the sound of hysteria?” and tweaked a different “American Idiot” lyric to refer to a “subliminal mind-Trump America” instead of a “subliminal mind-fuck America.” Shortly after Trump was elected that year, Armstrong chanted “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!” during a performance of “Bang Bang” at the AMAs. The videos for Green Day’s 2017 songs “Troubled Times” and “Back in the USA” both take not-so-subtle digs at Trump. Plus, fans have a history of trying to use “American Idiot” to protest/troll Trump. Armstrong has previously floated the idea of renouncing his U.S. citizenship. If the man who he once said “gives me diarrhea” gets re-elected, perhaps that would be the final push.
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