CT Jones
Contact CT Jones on X Contact CT Jones by Email View all posts by CT Jones April 24, 2026
If you ask Bette Midler, her whole career has been about spreading enough joy to distract from “the grimness of everyday life.”
But that mission hasn’t kept her from growing increasingly upset at the second Trump administration’s rapid-fire escalation of war profiteering, anti-trans rhetoric, and extrajudicial ICE raids — including those that resulted in the deaths of Minnesota residents Alex Pretti and Renee Good. “The insanity that’s happening, this unprecedented destruction of all of normal behavior, has affected me very badly,” Midler tells Rolling Stone from her home in Los Angeles. “I was talking to Jane Fonda the other day, and she said, ‘We need an anthem.’ So I looked back at [some] catalogs and an old Woody Guthrie song stuck in my head.”
The World War II-era song in question, “All You Fascists,” released in 1940, decried the poll tax, Jim Crow, and race hatred in the U.S. Now, Midler is debuting a 2026 revamp, which she co-wrote with producer Eric Kornfeld, targeting Trump policies and the need for voter turnout in the midterm elections. In the music video, out today, Midler is joined by her Beaches co-star Barbara Hershey and familiar faces including actor David Hyde Pierce, singer and actress Jenifer Lewis, and Broadway star Shoshana Bean.
“We’ll battle ICE together/Until they cut and run/Just like in Minneapolis/And when the midterms come,” Midler sings, “You’re bound to lose/You fascists, bound to lose.” Another verse includes the lyrics: “Trying to distract us from the Epstein files/You gas and beat and murder us, protecting pedophiles/Let’s turn the screws/You pervs are bound to lose.”
