To bring in 2024, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve had many famous artists perform including the well-known punk/rock band Green Day. However, as soon as they performed, news stories and X users started talking about the lyric change that Green Day made specifically for their 2024 New Year’s performance. They replaced the lyric “I’m not part of a redneck agenda” with “I’m not a part of the Maga agenda”. 

While this does not come as a shock, especially because of Green Day’s past encounters with Donald Trump such as when according to Forbes, “in a 2016 interview with Kerrang! magazine, Armstrong (lead vocalist for Green Day) compared former President Trump to Adolf Hitler.” However this time, billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk chimed in on X saying that “Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it”.

Other people started commenting on similar things, talking about how Green Day is a punk/rock band and they shouldn’t be commenting on politics. However, people who say this seem to not understand American Idiot’s original intent, and the intent of many punk bands, considering that punk is categorized as a genre going against the government. 

They’re not the first punk/rock/emo band to outwardly mention how they are against Donald Trump and his platform. Years ago Panic! At The Disco had a similar controversy because their song “High Hopes” was starting to be used as a M.A.G.A. campaign song that voters would play at M.A.G.A. events. Shortly afterward, Panic! went on Twitter to tell their fans to stop using their songs at Donald Trump-related events because they do not support Donald Trump and do not want to be affiliated with him and his campaign. 

Overall while Green Day’s actions were not surprising, they were a nice refreshment of the idea that in the United States bands can come out against the government and state their own opinions without consequences from the government.