Almost a quarter of a century ago, in the second year of George W. Bush’s miserable presidency, a campaign was launched to draft Bruce Springsteen as a candidate for one of New Jersey’s US Senate seats. Polls showed that Springsteen would be a viable contender, and volunteers were ready to circulate the petitions, put his name on the ballot and send the Boss to Washington.

But the musician thwarted the drive, announcing, “If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.”

That ended the 2002 bid to draw the Boss into electoral politics. But Springsteen did not relegate himself to the political sidelines. He’s since been one of the highest-profile advocates for Democratic presidential candidates, from John Kerry to Barack Obama to Kamala Harris. And Springsteen’s songs in recent decades have maintained his career-long commitment to address the fundamental issues of our times, with impassioned lyrics about everything from the failed response to Hurricane Katrina (“We Take Care of Our Own”) to the economic pain that extends from after deindustrialization (“Death to My Hometown”).

Donald Trump’s second presidential term has made Springsteen more outspoken than ever—and given his interventions a new urgency. He has often emerged as a more clear-eyed and impactful critic of the president’s dangerous abuses of power than the Democratic Party leaders who are supposed to be running an opposition party.

Now the rocker is hitting the road for the Land of Hopes and Dreams American Tour, which is likely to be the most politically charged show of his 50-plus-year career.

Even if Springsteen was saying nothing about the purpose of the tour he will launch on March 31, the schedule sends an explicit message. The tour kicks off in Minneapolis, where a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed poet and mother Renee Good before Customs and Border Protection agents gunned down intensive care nurse Alex Pretti. (Springsteen responded in January to the deadly violence of ICE’s surge into Minnesota with the bestselling song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” which is all but certain to feature in his shows.) The tour’s next stops will be in Portland and Los Angeles, two other communities that have been targeted by surges of armed and masked agents from Secretary Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security.

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But Springsteen is saying something. Leaning against a parked car in a video released this week, Springsteen announced the tour with a full-throated call to action:

“Brothers and sisters, fans, friends and good folk from coast to coast. We are living through dark, disturbing and dangerous times, but do not despair—the cavalry is coming! Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be taking the stage this spring from Minneapolis to California to Texas to Washington, DC, for the Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour. We will be rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America—American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution, and our sacred American dream—all of which are under attack by our wannabe king and his rogue government in Washington, DC. Everyone, regardless of where you stand or what you believe in, is welcome—so come on out and join the United Free Republic of E Street Nation for an American spring of Rock ’n’ Rebellion! I’ll see you there!”

Springsteen has long written about the anguish and abandonment of Americans in hard times, once explaining, “There ain’t no help, the cavalry stayed home. There ain’t no one hearing the bugle blown.
We take care of our own…” But this time he says, “Do not despair, the cavalry is coming!”—and he’s leading it all the way to Washington, where the tour will finish on May 27 with a huge outdoor concert at Nationals Park.

That doesn’t sit well with the Trump White House, which issued a statement suggesting that the tour by “this loser Springsteen” would go nowhere. But Springsteen fans who know a thing or two about politics were secure in their faith that the Boss will draw a crowd—for his music, and his politics.

Predicting that Springsteen would bring “a Rock-and-Roll Exorcism to Washington, D.C.,” US Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said, “America has no kings, but we’ve got one Boss and his name is Bruce Springsteen. Unlike our faux-King, the Boss fights for freedom and democracy for everyone. I cannot wait to hear him sing ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ loud enough to rattle the walls of what’s left of the White House.”

US Representative Bob Menendez, a Democrat who represents Springsteen’s native New Jersey, simply announced, “An American spring of Rock ‘n’ Rebellion is what the country needs in this moment and I am here for it. “