Speaking Truth to Power: Robert Fitzgerald’s “Hardcore Punk in the Age of Reagan”

Shut up, put one in the air
’Cause when I get it, I get it out everywhere
Serving and slinging, I’m not sitting scared
Elites don’t fight fair, I got no time to care
40 years of Reaganomics, n****, this what we get
N****, it is what it is, the world in service and shit
Deliver food we spit in, can’t even cook for they kids
Yo, my n**** stay flipping gear in a pinch — Soul Glo “Driponomics”

When I initially saw Robert Fitzgerald post about the upcoming release of his new book Hardcore Punk in the Age of Reagan: The Lyrical Lashing of an American Presidency, I knew I wanted to read it because I wanted to learn more about the history of punk both as a musical movement but also as a political force, that, as Fitzgerald points out, are important historical and contemporaneous documents that help us understand “grassroots oppositional forces” to political positions that harm individuals. Fitgerald adds that “[w]e need to see their lyrics for what they are: primary source documents of a key cultural moment in the history of the United States and a first-responder, artist-based reaction to the Reagan Revolution.”