Recommendations of the Editorial team
Kid Rock’s bizarre, multi-part US Army helicopter saga took another twist on Friday. The singer showed a promo video of himself stepping out of a private jet at the opening concert of his new tour for the America 250 celebrations and then flies to the show in Dallas in a military helicopter with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The helicopter prank began in late March, when a brief flyover over Rock’s Tennessee estate sparked a brief investigation into the pilots responsible. That investigation, initiated at the nearby 101st Airborne base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, ended abruptly when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stepped in and cleared the pilots of any responsibility for their several-minute leisure flight past Rock’s “Southern White House.” The two pilots were briefly suspended before Hegseth intervened. In April, Hegseth upped the ante by inviting Rock into an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter during a visit to Fort Belvoir in Virginia. What initially seemed like a fleeting obsession with attack helicopters has apparently produced a concrete result: a roughly 115-second trailer for Rock’s concert tour.
The singer was asked by Fox News earlier Friday about criticism that he was receiving benefits from the state. He responded with a swipe at the “cackling crows on “The View”” and suggested that he earned the privileges because he was visiting the troops – while the soldiers really weren’t interested in the host of “The View.” “It’s all just noise,” he said of the criticism.
Collaboration at the expense of the state
One can momentarily put aside the frustration that taxpayer dollars are being wasted on pumping up the jingoistic publicity campaign of an aging pop-country star. AH-64 Apaches only cost around $7,000 per hour to fly – compared to the overall budget of the US military, not even a drop in the ocean, more like a grain of sand in the Sahara. More notable is the camaraderie on display between Kid Rock and Pete Hegseth. The Trump administration has always been desperate for cultural allies, and if Kid Rock is the best they can muster, they’re unlikely to win the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans. But that doesn’t stop them from trying – and Kid Rock’s tour trailer could be a bit of a lure for other artists: Look what access and favor we’ll give you if you toe the party line.
It is rare enough for prominent mainstream figures to actually be convinced of this. For years, Kid Rock has been pretty much the best thing the Trump administration can muster. Just look at the dueling halftime shows. Billed as an alternative to the supposedly blasphemous decision to hire a Puerto Rican for the actual Super Bowl halftime show, Rock’s Turning Point USA-sponsored “All American Halftime Show” was a lame flop that failed to appeal to even the most ardent supporters of an America First agenda. Nick Fuentes, the anti-Semitic livestreamer who has captured the ears of a generation of young conservatives, put it bluntly: “I was watching it and just felt depressed,” Fuentes said on his show on Rumble. “If this is the best we have to offer, I think everyone will prefer Latino futurism.”
And yet here we are: The “American Badass” is flown in by helicopter so that he can get his concert audience in the mood. If Kid Rock is satisfied that this is the most important cultural contribution of his late period – here you go. Only one thing is pretty clear: The country — and every American who pays even a fraction of a cent in taxes toward a helicopter gunship’s flight budget — deserves better.