JD Vance presents his new walk-on music – a song about the “liberation” of America

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Attentive listeners at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and at Trump’s rally in Michigan this week may have noticed a subtle development in the campaign trail: JD Vance officially has an entrance song.

On the surface, country legend Merle Haggard’s 2005 song “America First” seems to fit well.

After all, the song has the same name as one of Donald Trump’s most famous slogans and its lyrics fit well with his criticism of foreign wars.

“Why don’t we free this United States? We’re the ones who need it most. Let’s help the rest of the world for a change. And let’s rebuild America first,” part of the song goes.

The song was written during the Iraq War, a conflict in which JD Vance served but which he also criticized.

“When I was a senior in high school, that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq,” Vance said at the RNC. “From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnant wages, the people who run this country have failed time and time again.”

What Vance did not mention is that Donald Trump Also initially supported the Iraq war.

In an interview with Howard Stern in 2002, the radio host asked Trump if he supported the invasion.

“Yeah, I think so,” Trump replied. “I wish it had been done right the first time.”

Trump later falsely claimed that he had opposed the war even before it began.

The discrepancy with the motto “America First” may go beyond Trump’s foreign policy views.

During his lifetime, Haggard resisted attempts by one party or the other to claim him for themselves.

“There are things I support on both sides of the fence,” he once explained to Diversity.”I cannot be called one or the other, because if I were either, I would want to be the other.”

“America First,” he continued, was actually written out of a criticism of George Bush and 9/11-era laws, including the controversial Patriot Act, which gave federal agencies sweeping surveillance powers.

“As an American, I have to say that I don’t think they have been honest with the public about the reasons for our being there,” Haggard said. “And I think the United States of America is mature enough to understand the real reasons… I’m just disappointed that (Bush) is not being honest with us… I think if we as Americans have to suffer sanctions when our freedom is at stake, then we should know the bigger picture.”

Haggard also defended country music stars The Chicks (formerly The Dixie Chicks) when they faced strong public backlash for their criticism of George Bush.

Haggard called her treatment a “witch hunt” and verbally a “lynching.”

“I don’t even know the Dixie Chicks, but I find it an insult to all the men and women who fought and died in past wars when almost the majority of Americans went for their throats for expressing their opinions,” he said.

Haggard, who died in 2016, wrote a variety of political songs over the course of his life, from a paean to Hillary Clinton to 1969’s “Okie from Muskogee,” a critique of hippie culture during the Vietnam War.

“When I was in prison, I knew what it was like to have your freedom taken away,” Haggard once said of the song. “Freedom is everything. During the Vietnam War, there were all kinds of protests. You had these (soldiers) going there and dying for a cause – we don’t even know what it was really about. And you have these young people who were free and complaining about it. There’s something wrong with that and with (degrading) these poor guys.”

The song became a benchmark for many conservatives, even though Haggard later claimed he was “dumb as a rock” when he wrote the song.

Here are the full lyrics of “America First” according to Genius.

(Verse)

Why don’t we liberate these United States

We are the ones who need it most

Let us help for a change from the rest of the world

And let’s rebuild America first

Our highways and bridges are falling apart

Who is blessed and who is cursed?

There is something to do all over the world

But let’s rebuild America first

Who is on the hill and who is watching the valley?

And who is responsible for all this?

God bless the army and God bless our freedom

And damn it, the rest of everything

Yes, men in position retreat

Freedom is stuck in reverse

Let’s leave Iraq and get back on track

And let’s rebuild America first

Why don’t we liberate these United States?

We are the ones who need it most

Do you think I’m talking nonsense?

Guys, this is not a joke

I make twenty trips a year from coast to coast