Full Circle

When I started writing this blog, way back in September of 2013, my first piece was not about politics, sports, travel or diplomacy. At that fairly innocent time, no one could actually envision a President Trump or a New York Jets Super Bowl victory. One of those unlikely events has not yet come to pass.

My piece was entitled Tribute to Linda and it was a lament for the fact that my all-time favorite female singer, Linda Ronstadt, had revealed in her memoir that she had contracted a form of Parkinson’s Disease that left her barely able to sing a note. I have written almost 500 articles on this blog since that first one, but it is only now that I return to the subject of Ronstadt.

Since the unfortunate end of Linda’s musical career, she has lived quietly in her hometown of Tucson. She has only come back into the news in the past few days. No, she didn’t miraculously regain the melodic singing voice that gave us the mix of country, rock, pop, her father’s native Mexican folk songs, operetta and the American classic songbook that thrilled us all those years ago. Ronstadt succeeded at every genre she tried and has left a legacy of recorded music that will resonate among music lovers for many generations to come.

What brought Ronstadt back into the news during these tumultuous political times is that an event has touched her personally and magically caused her to regain her voice, not in a singing sense, but in a loud and powerful rebuke to the man who continues to use “his toxic politics and criminality” in attempting to carry him back to the White House.

Licking his tail over the whoopin’ he took in the debate with Kamala Harris, Donald Trump announced that he would hold a rally, not only in Tucson, but at a hall named after none other than Linda Ronstadt. Although she would “prefer to ignore that sad fact, [b]ut since the building has my name on it, I need to say something.” What she said was nothing less than a vitriolic diatribe against the man she described as a “rapist.”

The heart of her statement read: “It saddens me to see the former president bring his hate show to Tucson, a town with deep Mexican-American roots and a joyful, tolerant spirit. I don’t just deplore his toxic politics, his hatred of women, immigrants and people of color, his criminality, dishonesty and ignorance — although there’s that,” Ronstadt added.

She went on to criticize Trump for his border policies, particularly his administration’s family separation policy which “made orphans of thousands of little children and babies, and brutalized their desperate mothers and fathers.”

Referring to the civil verdict that concluded that Trump had sexually assaulted the journalist E. Jean Carroll, Ronstadt also called Trump a rapist, saying: “Trump first ran for president warning about rapists coming in from Mexico. I’m worried about keeping the rapist out of the White House.” She then endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket.

Much has been made of the endorsement of Harris-Walz by arguably the most popular person in the Universe, Taylor Swift, and whether it really will make a difference in the race. And, although Ronstadt’s popularity at Swift’s level is many decades in the past, she still speaks to her many adoring fans and her appeal to reject hatred and bigotry as the basis of a presidency has to have some effect. While sadly we are no longer able to hear her live singing voice, we can still detect its echoes as she now speaks for democracy and against hatred. It’s So Easy to Fall in Love.