Fascism is Boring
If democracy falls, our culture will become total garbage
“My grandparents learned English watching Martin.”
This is Action Bronson, the exact kind of multicultural genius that conservativism seeks to eradicate.
“My grandparents learned English watching Martin,” he repeats, and once more to close out the 2019 track Dmtri: “Wild immigrants, my grandparents learned English watching Martin.”
In an otherwise sprawling free verse of a song, these lyrics are the closest thing to its chorus. And they’re quintessential Action Bronson: the working-class immigrant experience vividly laced with pop culture—specifically Black culture. Born and raised in Flushing, Queens by an Albanian Muslim and an American Jew, Action Bronson raps about everything from religion to sports, from conspiracies to Michelin dining, from film and TV to sex and drugs.
The hallucinogen dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is the ostensible topic of Dmtri, but in typical fashion Bronson covers the full gamut with bars like:
“Bitch I’m a superhero, I wasn’t born with dinero
Somehow I turned into De Niro
Just give me one shot at the lead role
You’ll be amazed, like the first time you seen snow
Down in Georgia on the Peach Grove
I shoot ninety-five percent from the free throw
Sixty from the field, strange sex appeal
The lone gunman, muffle the shotty with an old onion”
The grandiose metaphors and references come fast and hot, and from every direction. If someone earnestly said these things to my face, I would recoil with disgust. But Dmtri is a magic trick, layering Action Bronson’s boasts over an Alchemist beat so humble and nostalgic it evokes a Sergio Leone 1960s spaghetti western soundtrack. It’s a torrent of triumph in a tender emotional key.
These aren’t dreams or drug-fueled delusions, they’re the well-earned bragging rights from one of rap’s criminally underappreciated virtuosos. He’s just got it. The man is gifted. I’m sure he’s put in the work; sharpening his craft over 10,000 hours and such. But these lyrical sequences are so singular in their creative punch, they reveal something innate that no amount of practice can forge.
“Me, disappear, where? I’m right here
Creepin’ in the cold nights air
To get on my level take fifty light-years
My jewelry boxes like the habitat for white bears
After I’m finished in the sauna
I jump into some freezing cold water
Shaking like I’m reading from the Torah”
What kind of person comes up with this shit?
A multicultural, multilingual, tattooed, Muslim, Jewish rapper/chef/actor, that’s who. The kind of person capable of making such memorable, beautiful music is our national dream personified. It doesn’t get any more American than this—but if conservatives have their way, people like Action Bronson will disappear and their art will die.
Project 2025 and the Trump GOP offer no novel interpretation of conservativism, they only accelerate its long-planned end game. A country dominated by a narrow slice of straight, white, Christian men has always been the goal; now that it’s in sight let’s consider the cultural implications of such dystopian futures. No immigrants. No Black or brown music, or books, or film or TV. Nothing remotely gay or trans or weird in any way.
Just basic. Boring. Bland.
All we’ll get is the “Western culture” mythologized and fetishized by everyone from Stephen Miller to Elon Musk to Bill Maher. Now in all fairness, Western culture has given us some gems. Who doesn’t love the Stones and the Beatles? Who hasn’t savored some F. Scott Fitzgerald? When pursued with fervor and at face value, who can deny liberté, égalité, fraternité is an instant classic?
“Western culture” has a lot to offer, but the purges our government pursues in its name would result in the total obliteration of our great national cultural canon. Authoritarian regimes always destroy their best stuff, because their best comes from the workshops of those they consider the enemy within. Would you watch a Super Bowl with no halftime show, played by teams with only white, Christian players?
Fascism is terrifying. Yes, it’s destabilizing and destructive to our lives and our futures. It is also suicidal. A white, Christian, male country is not just undesirable, it’s impossible. It’s fantasy for the pathetic and weak-minded. It’s a deeply weird thing to desire, let alone publicly champion, because of how obviously miniscule of a person one has to be to want to live in a world where Friends is the only show on TV.
This is the world I want to live in:
“Dirty mountain tiger to the face
Better strap up, I’m ‘bout to see space
As I entered, I felt that everything was centered
Oh shit, I think I’m back in the placenta
But then I woke up in a Nissan Sentra
In the parking lot of Queens Center, uh (Don’t hurt me baby)
My grandparents learned English watchin’ Martin, uh, ha yeah
My grandparents learned English watchin’ Martin”
ICE goons aren’t just killing and kidnapping your friends and neighbors. They’re deporting the next Action Bronson. They’re maiming the next Martin Lawrence and silencing the next Streisand. Preserving America and the chance to fight for a more perfect union guarantees the right to live free from fear and oppression—and to cherish extraordinary music while we do it.
Action Bronson Dmitri is the coolest metaphor to multiculturalism and antifascism I’ve seen yet, no notes.
The examples you give of Western Culture are not. Both bands credit their output with their immersion in music from blues and soul, I.e; African Americans. You want Western Culture, how about the Goths and Visigoths. Or Beethoven and Bach. ICE seems to have its share of hypocrisy in the makeup of its foot soldiers. Point is, you can’t separate culture from the polyglot, and will destroy it all trying to.