What role did music play in Trump and MAGA’s electoral appeal?

Donald Trump knows the value of music.

On November 5, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The U.S.A” filled the Palm Beach County Convention Center as the former and incoming president of the United States walked onto the stage to announce his victory.

Trump concluded his speech by blasting the disco classic “YMCA” for the ecstatic crowd.

Created in 1978 by the musical group the Village People, the song is one of Trump’s favourites and has appeared at many rallies. It easily creates a jubilant mood from the energetic dance rhythms and catchy outbursts of “YMCA.”

Originally a queer anthem, the song has come to represent the American working class — who were Trump’s primary target audience in this election.

Music was a key part of Trump’s campaign. Music has been important for many politicians, including Barack Obama, but few have been able to harness its energy so effectively.

Of course, music can also have a negative effect, such as when it produced the awkward dance moves of former British Prime Minister Theresa May.

How do politicians like Trump use music as a political tool? And how can music enhance a political message?

2024 election: From YMCA to Brat

Trump has a long history of being an entertainer, mostly notably his time on The Apprentice. Celebrity theatrics, his dance moves, and of course music, have been key features of his rallies.

Over the past nine years, Trump has developed a diverse playlist, centring on the pop hits of the 1970s and 1980s, the 1970s being his youth and the 1980s being when his business career took off. Some commentators have written that Trump still lives in this era, noting the decadent décor of his marble and gold-plated triplex at Trump Tower that opened in 1983.

Some of the artists from this era featured at Trump’s rallies included British pop icons David Bowie and Elton John alongside rock stars such as Bruce Springsteen and Guns N’ Roses.

Nonetheless, many of these artists didn’t want Trump playing their music at rallies. These songs evoke nostalgia for the 1980s, an era perceived as a golden time by many conservative Americans under the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Trump is also an avid fan of classical music. In 2017, he gave a speech listing symphonies as a major achievement of western civilization. His favourite artists include Canadian pianist Glenn Gould and Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti.

In 2016, Pavarotti’s family asked Trump not to play the late tenor’s signature “Nessun Dorma,” an aria from Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, that triumphantly finishes with the word vincerò (I will win).

The third category of music at MAGA rallies relates to Trump’s nationalist message. Especially in 2024, Trump made heavy use of Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.,” with the singer even performing at live at rallies.

Trump’s Democratic opponents have also made use of music. Kamala Harris’s campaign made heavy use of Beyoncé’s Freedom, especially after the singer’s endorsement of the vice president. Harris also received an endorsement from hyperpop artist, Charli XCX, who tweeted “kamala is brat” in her signature lime-green colour.

A third major endorsement came from Taylor Swift, who was expected to deliver a large number of young women voters to Harris. However, despite these high-profile endorsements, Harris lost. Some commentators suggest that such support may have undermined her campaign by negatively associating Harris with rich elites.

Music and politics

Music can evoke strong emotions and bring people together, and it has long been used as a form of protest. There are three ways music can be used to support a political message.

First, the political message can be expressed in the lyrics. It can be explicit, as in “God Bless the U.S.A.” It can also be suggested in lyrics by others, such as “vincerò” in Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.”

Using lyrics to express a political meaning was a notable strategy agreed upon by a meeting of Communist composers at the Second International Congress of Composers and Music Critics in Prague of 1948, organized by composer Hanns Eisler. In this view, music has no meaning, it is “autonomous,” unless words are added.

Second, political meaning in music can arise from association or delineation, whereby one associates the music with a certain event or feeling.

A notable work is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony which has been associated with a wide variety of meanings: the original message of unity, Nazism, and the more recently, as the anthem of the European Union.

At Trump’s rallies, this second type of political meanings appeared in the nostalgia associated with the pop hits from the 1970s and 1980s.

Lastly, a political message can be incorporated into the musical notes themselves. One composer who was notable for this was Italian modernist Bruno Maderna who took musical material with political meaning, such as Italian resistance songs, and chopped them up before placing them in a complex system of Latin squares to create musical works with inherent political meaning. However, this is a rather obscure technique that is hard to perceive.

A clearer example is the music of Russian symphonic composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, who, according to some, embedded hidden meanings in his music through a subtle use of irony and sarcasm as an act of rebellion against the Stalin regime. This also remains hard to perceive and the composer’s thoughts remain largely unknown.

A darker idea is that music, along with other forms of culture, can be used to distract. This was the argument of German philosopher and musicologist Theodor Adorno. He wrote that popular culture was weaponized as “mass deception,” encouraging the masses to ignore the pressing issues of the day.

This connects to the 2024 election, where both Trump and Harris were criticized for failing to address the concerns of voters and choosing to instead rely on personal attacks and “vibes.”

The power of music

In addition to music holding a political message, being catchy is a major advantage. Catchiness typically involves a short distinctive musical fragment that is repeated over and over gradually building a sense of familiarity.

However, not all political music is quite as catchy as the MAGA playlist. Each year at their annual conference, the British Liberal Democrats sing The Land,, a jolly anthem about land taxes.

Could Trump’s MAGA playlist have contributed to his win? A winning recipe seems to be a mixture of nostalgic popular hits, traditional classical works and catchy patriotic numbers.

Politicians should pay more attention to the political power of music. This was certainly known to Plato, who wrote:

“What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.”