Singer/songwriter/social media director debuts political satire song after Vermont congresswoman says ICE agents are ‘vigilantes’ who ‘kidnap’
by Guy Page
Rep. Becca Balint is the only Vermonter allowed to speak her mind on the floor of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. The voters sent her there to speak and vote on their behalf.
In this episode of The Vermont Podcast, Paul Bean (with a little harmony from me) debuts ‘the Ballad of Buttwipe Becca,’ at about the 19 minute, 40 second mark amid a discussion of her many recent controversial comments. You can see a more polished version here.
In recent weeks, in Congress and elsewhere, Vermont’s sole Congressperson has 1) wondered aloud who, if not for immigrants, will wipe our behinds, 2) misinformed voters that the Veterans Administration will discriminate against Democrats, and 3) described mask-wearing ICE agents as ‘vigilantes’ who ‘kidnap’ their victims.
Then when the White House called her out on the last statement, she doubled-down in self defense: ‘If ICE was proud of what they’re doing they’d show their d— faces and identify themselves.’
It is our job as the press to hold elected representatives accountable. Mostly we do this by reporting the facts and letting readers comment. Sometimes we employ satire, a practice at least as old as Athenian democracy, when the playwright Aristophanes wrote ‘Lysistrata,” a play about women who withheld sex from their husbands to make them stop fighting a war.
Paul Bean’s ‘Ballad of Butt-wipe Becca’ is in this same tradition. More recent versions are “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” by Pete Seeger, in which the ‘big fool’ – understood to be President Lyndon Johnson – “says to push on” into deeper involvement in Vietnam. Also during the Vietnam War, the Smothers Brothers drew huge TV audiences (include this admiring young viewer) with the same schtick.
Newspapers used to publish outrageous political cartoons, right next to staid, often pompous editorials. Guess which the readers preferred? Now the political cartoon has gone the way of, well, the daily newspaper. Its successor is the meme. And sometimes, impromptu online songs like Oliver Anthony’s ‘Rich Men North of Richmond,’ who, BTW is coming to the Rutland State Fairgrounds in August.
Becca has her Constitutionally-provided platform. We have ours – one not merely ‘provided’ but recognized as an inalienable right conferred by nature and nature’s God.
Becca Balint will continue to speak her mind.
We will continue to speak ours.
And so, we hope, will you.