The 25 Best Anti-Trump Protest Songs

Eminem has long been a spokesman for the kind of alienated, white, working-class male that Donald Trump is alleged to draw the core of his support from, but he was on the anti-MAGA train early, releasing this eight-minute freestyle in October 2016. Most of the song is more about Eminem’s issues than any political ones. But amid the track’s rapid-fire rhymes, offensive jibes, and pop-culture references, he takes time to address the kind of people who might be on the fence about casting a ballot for Trump in a couple of weeks. “You say Trump don’t kiss ass like a puppet/’Cause he runs his campaign with his own cash for the fundin’/And that’s what you wanted/A fuckin’ loose cannon who’s blunt with his hand on the button/Who doesn’t have to answer to no one/Great idea!” —Jon Dolan

Former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra claimed that the band’s 1981 song “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” was directed at violent “jock-type” slam dancers of the time, not literal fascists. Forty-five years later, warns Biafra, literal fascists have entered the chat … and the White House. First premiered during a 2017 performance with heavy music supergroup Dead Cross, “Nazi Trumps Fuck Off” just swaps in the new title, but its singularly focused ire makes the jab feel even sharper. —Jason Roth

When Nicki Minaj’s version of Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” dropped in December 2016, Donald Trump had just won the presidential election, thanks in large part on a promise to enact a massive deportation apparatus. That led Minaj to admit her worries about the incoming Trump administration’s plans for immigrants like her. “Island girl, Donald Trump want me go home,” she harmonizes amid the usual bars about flexing and flossing. There’s been much speculation about why the Trinidad-born Minaj has evolved into a staunch Trump supporter and whether her shift was due to a sincere political awakening or a craven desire to get U.S. citizenship. Regardless, her anxious thoughts of “Black Barbies” are now a relic of the past. —Mosi Reeves

Low Cut Connie frontman Adam Weiner protests by way of reclamation on “Livin in the USA,” a response to the way MAGA reactionaries appropriate American culture for their own oppressive goals. “I made this record because I refuse to let these motherfuckers steal our art and steal our joy,” Weiner said in a statement. “This country goddamn right invented rock & roll, hip-hop, jazz, R&B. Music with soul communicates on a level that no algorithm or tech bro or artificial intelligence or political machinery can ever understand or contain,” he said. “America created these table-flipping art forms. Rock & roll is a table-flipping art form. It’s time to flip the table again.” —Kory Grow

Superchunk’s 11th studio album, 2018’s What a Time to Be Alive, was a surprisingly politically charged turn for the veteran indie band, best known for angsty, reflective mini-anthems about dead-end jobs, brutal breakups, and general discontent. “Cloud of Hate” stands out among the album’s most poignant songs because it’s less about Donald Trump himself than the latent societal darkness that Trumpism has revealed. But even the song’s most stinging line gives a glint of hope for the future: “I hope you die scared/Of all the kids who know the truth.” —J.R.

In the Nineties, rappers celebrated Donald Trump as an outrageously rich and boisterous personality, the real-life equivalent of Scrooge McDuck, no matter Trump’s real-life struggles with bankruptcy throughout the decade. The Coup, the Oakland funk-rap group led by future filmmaker Boots Riley, were the rare act that saw through Trump’s BS. On “Pimps,” he and E-Roc portray the likes of David Rockefeller and John Paul Getty as street pimps exploiting the public, “getting rich off petroleum wars” and “making you eat Top Ramen.” The final verse finds an unidentified member of the crew mocking Trump in a raggamuffin style. “Trump Trump check out the cash in my trunk,” says the member in a mocking tone. “I am Donald Trump me think you might have heard about me/How me last wife Ivana come and catch me money.” —M.R.

Right before Independence Day 2026, adventurous country artist Margo Price released Days of Unrest, a collection of protest tunes. Alongside versions of Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm” and Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” on which Price is joined by Joan Baez, she included a version of “Oval Room,” a 1984 tune by Texas songwriter Blaze Foley. The song was originally written about Ronald Reagan, but as Price noted, the greedy, unfeeling politician in the song could easily by Donald Trump. “He thinks everything is his to keep/He’s a real cowboy with his make-up on,” she sings. The song’s video is a highlight reel of unflattering Trump imagery. —J.D.

“Donald Trump is a white supremacist — full stop,” clipping. MC Daveed Diggs matter-of-factly states on this smoldering cut, which was initially commissioned in 2017 and used in a Mass MoCA exhibit two years later before being released amid the tumult of summer 2020. The group’s combination of nimble, righteous rapping and apocalyptic atmospherics — as well as a song-opening DJ Screw sample — makes “Chapter 319″ a searing statement that remains relevant in 2026. —M.J.

Singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, who already has a plentiful back catalog of protest songs, wrote “City of Heroes” after the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Echoing Pastor Martin Niemöller’s Holocaust protest poem “First They Came,” Bragg flips the message to show he’s in on the fight. “When they came for the immigrants, I got in their face,” he sings, repeating the refrain for ICE agents who came for refugees, five-year-olds, and “my neighborhood.” “I wrote this song yesterday as a tribute to the bravery of the people of Minneapolis who, knowing that these trigger-happy ICE thugs operate with seeming impunity in their midst, are still willing to put themselves in harm’s way to defend their community,” Bragg commented. “Their resistance is an inspiration to us all.” —K.G.

“Flame your crew quicker than Trump fucks his youngins,” raps El-P on “Nobody Speak” as he gives voice to scurrilous gossip surrounding then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his family — and has since gained new resonance considering revelations about Trump’s friendship with the late financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Both El and Killer Mike weave darkly satirical lines over DJ Shadow’s booming, horn-inflected track about their brash behavior. But it’s only in the accompanying video, which depicts a circle of world leaders voicing the group’s words as they brag about their capacity for violence, that the meaning of “Nobody Speak” becomes all too clear. —M.R.

Southern California rapper Anderson .Paak’s funky “6 Summers” opens with an image based in rumors that the 45th president fathered a child with a former housekeeper: “Trump’s got a love child, and I hope that bitch is buck wild/I hope she sip mezcal, I hope she kiss señoritas and black gals/I hope her momma’s El Salv’, I hope her poppa stick around.” Considering the way Trump loves unsubstantiated attacks on his political opponents, it’s innuendo that seems like fair game, and .Paak follows that bold assertion with lyrics that take on serious issues like consumerism, gun violence, and police brutality. —J.D.

Two decades after recording “Citizen C.I.A.,” a song off their album The Warrior’s Code, the Dropkick Murphys started performing “Citizen I.C.E.” in November. It’s a tongue-in-cheek recruitment song, and the Murphys’ ICE job description includes the line “Too scared to join the military, too dumb to be a cop.” The band released a clip of the song, recorded for a split LP with the band Haywire, in tribute to Renee Good, writing that her family is in their prayers. They ended their Instagram post with this message, “ICE may you rot in hell.” —K.G.

Two Minnesota music luminaries — activist and folkie Paul Metsa and Low genius Alan Sparhawk — team up for this cut, which cloaks its sharp sentiments on Alligator Alcatraz, DOGE’s chainsawing of American institutions, and other Trump administration offenses in chiming guitars and swirling vocal harmonies. That’s by design: “As a songwriter and artist I hope, of course, that it may help others deal with the darkness, give them something to sing about and dance to, inspire them and at the very least, know they have a neighbor that shares their American ideals and beliefs,” they said around its release.–M.J.

In 2017, female grunge-punk pioneers L7 returned from an 18-year hiatus with a seemingly prescient fantasy: a pack of zealous rioters attacking Donald Trump’s gilded Florida compound — nearly four years before the violent events of Jan. 6. Beneath a steady chug of the group’s punky, subversive spin on cock rock, growling frontwoman Donita Sparks imagines DJT firing off panicked tweets from his “golden throne” as a punk mob storms the gates. —J.R.

In October 2016, author Dave Eggers launched “30 Days, 30 Songs,” an anti-Donald Trump musical protest. A song-a-day project designed to raise awareness in the 30 days leading up to Election Day, it included contributions from artists like R.E.M., clipping., and Adia Victoria. (After Trump’s victory, the titular numbers swelled to 1,000, with artists like Tim Heidecker and JPEGMafia signing on.) Aimee Mann’s ability to get inside her subjects’ heads is on sterling display in the project’s Day Two offering, which opens with Trump seething over being mocked at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner: “That bastard making fun of me in front of all my peers/Those people think I own this town, you’re stripping all my gears,” she grimaces over chiming yet strident strumming. Mann continues to pick apart Trump’s psyche with devastating accuracy and dry wit: “You handing me grenades is just compelling me/To pull the pin,” Mann-as-Trump declares near the song’s close, a description of Trump’s brawling approach to governance that rings even more true nearly 10 years later. —M.J.

That Pussy Riot’s 2016 vision of a dystopian Donald Trump America proved strikingly prescient should come as no surprise — the radical feminist art collective, whose key members fled Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian Russia after years of arrests and imprisonment, has been there, done that. In the group’s hands, MAGA’s signature slogan is stripped of its empty campaign rhetoric and recast as a full-throated demand: “Let other people in/Listen to your women/Stop killing black children/Make America Great Again.” The music — a deceptively breezy acoustic bossa nova repeatedly ruptured by harsh electronic blasts — captures the unsettling feeling of ordinary life continuing as democratic norms steadily erode. —J.R.

Tom Waits’ first new song in 15 years, done in collaboration with veteran U.K. hip-hop crew Massive Attack, is a raw, stripped-down anti-war screed that arrived a few weeks after Donald Trump went back on his “no new wars” pledge and commenced military operations against Iran. In many ways, it taps a deep well of anti-war anger that predates Trump, especially in the way it connects racial, social, and class oppression with war machine hypocrisy: “We trim your hedges, we fight your wars,” Waits sings. The accompanying video brings the anti-Trump point home via stark authoritarian imagery and closing text that lists the names of people who’ve lost their lives at the hands of ICE. —J.D.

A Woody Guthrie for the TikTok era, Jesse Welles has garnered millions of views with his clever lefty folk tunes. Of course, Donald Trump has been a target on songs like “Trump Trailers,” which imagines the Donald trying to pull off his egomaniacal huckster shtick if he was raised in a trailer park, or “Join ICE,” a satiric ad for new recruits. “No Kings,” written to inspire demonstrators at the protest rallies of the same name, embodies the spirit of Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” imagining a better world beyond Trumpism with lines like, “No hatred, no violence/No starvation and no greed/And no kings, no kings.” —J.D.

The opening track of Downtown Boys’ 2017 full-length Cost of Living has the brass-propelled churn of a classic-rock anthem at first. But when lead yelper Victoria Ruiz comes in, there’s no doubt that this band is punk: “How much is enough?/And who makes that call?” she bellows, her bandmates rising up to yell “Fuck it!” as guitars chime like warning sirens. Ruiz’s railing against the border wall that Donald Trump promised during his 2016 campaign is simply dismissive — “A wall is a wall/And nothing more at all,” she spits, revealing the empty symbolism that propelled his rise to the White House with a spirit that shows the joy that resistance can offer. “If you’ve been held back or been oppressed by forces around you, taking away options from you, taking away [your future], we can demand all those back,” Ruiz told Rolling Stone in 2017. “As long as there is at least one future to believe in, I think there is positivity there.” —M.J.

“Real estate bozo/Nazi cult Gestapo” is an unambiguous current-day Donald Trump dis, but the sonic assault of Public Enemy’s 2020 protest anthem harkens back to a time when calling rap music “the Black CNN” (as frontman Chuck D infamously did) actually meant something. The song’s confrontational, militaristically barked rhymes recall PE classics like “Fight the Power,” and Hank Shocklee from the group’s peak-era Bomb Squad production team returns with an apocalyptic classic-beat attack that draws a through line straight back to the Fear of a Black Planet age. —J.R.

“I might have to see your face a hundred times every day/But I’m not gonna say your name.” So says (or doesn’t) Guy Blakeslee, who records as Entrance, on this 2017 compilation track. The L.A.-based artist understands that the most crippling fear of any good serial egotist is being marginalized, or worse, completely ignored. In refusing to utter the name of a certain current White House occupant, Blakeslee denies him the kind of attention and notoriety he craves, proving that sometimes the most powerful thing a protest song can do is to not take the bait. —J.R.

While Neil Young has openly criticized Donald Trump for years, only a handful of his songs have addressed him directly. The most recent, the 2025 standalone single “Big Crime,” from his current Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts incarnation, is nothing if not direct. It explicitly calls out the Don for turning the presidency into a brazen criminal enterprise with the plainspoken outrage of early Young protest anthems like “Ohio” and a defiant new battle cry: “No More Great Again.”—J.R. 

Fiona Apple has always excelled at writing sharp songs that poke holes in self-important males. Released on Soundcloud a few days before the 2017 Women’s March, “Tiny Hands” prominently samples Donald Trump’s infamous utterance “grab ’em by the pussy” from the Access Hollywood tape. Apple chants, “We don’t want your tiny hands anywhere near our underpants” over a martial rhythm and spare piano. The song clocks in at just under a minute, but that’s all the time it takes to make Trump’s sexism look pathetic while also giving the Women’s March a signature anthem. —J.D.

In January, federal immigration agents killed Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Shortly after the incidents, Bruce Springsteen released “Streets of Minneapolis,” one of his most immediate and powerful political songs, recalling Sixties protest folk as well as the stark realism of his acoustic classic Nebraska and his 1993 song “Streets of Philadelphia,” written in response to the AIDS crisis. He excoriated “Trump’s federal thugs” and “[Stephen] Miller and [Kristi] Noem’s dirty lies,” and celebrated the memory of Pretti and Good, channeled the street protest chant “ICE out now,” and got loads of local credit for pronouncing Nicollet Avenue correctly. —J.D.

Raised on Ice Cube and 2Pac, Compton firebrand YG knew how to cut right to the issue in a gangsta rap song. The result was Black Lives Matter protesters across the country taking to the streets and chanting “Fuck Donald Trump” like it was “This Land Is Your Land.” Recorded in the run-up to the 2016 election, YG and Nipsey Hussle were critical of the Republican candidate’s opinions of Mexicans and tired of just talking among themselves. Their scabrous attack brought the energy of vintage Nineties rap into the 21st century: “Have a rally out in L.A., we gon’ fuck it up,” rapped YG. “Home of the Rodney King riot, we don’t give a fuck.” —Christopher R. Weingarten