Recommendations of the Editorial team
If you Bette Midler asks, then her entire career has been dedicated to spreading enough joy to distract from “the dreariness of everyday life.”
But that assignment hasn’t stopped her from growing increasingly angry about the rapid escalation of the second Trump administration—war profiteering, anti-trans rhetoric and extrajudicial ICE raids, including those that led to the deaths of Minnesotans Alex Pretti and Renee Good. “The madness that is happening right now, this unprecedented destruction of all normality, has really affected me,” says Midler told ROLLING STONE from her home in Los Angeles. “I was talking to Jane Fonda the other day and she said, ‘We need an anthem.’ So I dug through a few catalogs and an old Woody Guthrie song stuck with me.”
The World War II-era song – “All You Fascists”, released in 1940 – took aim at the poll tax, Jim Crow laws and racial hatred in the United States. Now bring Bette Midler a new version for 2026, which she co-wrote with producer Eric Kornfeld and which takes aim at Trump’s policies and the need for high voter turnout in the midterm elections. In the music video, out today, Midler stars alongside her “Beaches” co-star Barbara Hershey, as well as familiar faces like actor David Hyde Pierce, singer and actress Jenifer Lewis and Broadway star Shoshana Bean.
Against ICE and Trump
“We’ll battle ICE together/Until they cut and run/Just like in Minneapolis/And when the midterms come,” Midler sings, “You’re bound to lose/You fascists, bound to lose.” Another verse contains the lines: “Trying to distract us from the Epstein files/You gas and beat and murder us, protecting pedophiles/Let’s turn the screws/You pervs are bound to lose.”
For Midler, who began her career in a college folk group, this new version of “All You Fascists” is a direct homage to the legacy of American protest music in the political activism of the fifties and sixties. She remembers this era with warmth – and she believes that its revival is necessary to overcome the political exhaustion that many people are feeling right now.
“Back then, everyone had a guitar and everyone had a song,” says Midler. “Watching this blossom and seeing the excitement on people’s faces as they realized they didn’t have to be silent – it was a wonderful experience. I think we could all use a little bit of that meaning in our lives right now. And to stand there as a generation and say we had the best of it without turning around and extending a helping hand to the people behind us – that is completely unacceptable to me.”
