Joan Baez urges younger artists to speak out against Donald Trump: “Why can’t they just take that little step?”
Legendary singer-songwriter Joan Baez has urged her fellow artists to speak up about politics and to use their voices.
Baez, who has been active politically since beginning her music career in the 1960s, made the comments during a recent podcast appearance on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ show, Wiser Than Me.
While Baez believes that the current crop of younger artists certainly have the musical talent, she is less impressed with the silence of many in response to the ongoing actions from Donald Trump’s administration.
Louis-Dreyfus posited to her, “There’s a whole generation of really talented artists who are quite silent about the current assault on democracy. Do you find that unbelievably frustrating or do you understand, perhaps, where those artists are coming from?”
Baez admitted that she does “understand where they’re coming from”, but then highlighted, “It’s revealing that the one song that’s used in all of these demonstrations is ‘The Times They Are a-Changin.’ The level of that writing from back then hasn’t been approached. No one has approached it. You can’t summon that up, I don’t think.”
She added, “The young people right now, some are writing amazing stuff. A few are willing to speak out.”
The singer-songwriter then name-checked Brandi Carlile and “my pal” Maggie Rogers, who have both participated in anti-ICE shows, as exceptions to the rule.
Nevertheless, Baez wishes that she could include more names alongside Carlile and Rogers as prominent political voices, adding, “I sort of cock my head at these stadiums filled with brilliant young women songwriters, and why can’t they just take that little step?”
The ‘Diamonds and Rust’ singer added, “Because they’re already richer than God, you know, most of them. So, that little step.”
Following the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minnesota in January, Baez took to the stage alongside Tom Morello and Rogers at a No Kings rally held in the Minneapolis city in March, which also saw Bruce Springsteen perform his protest anthem, ‘Streets of Minneapolis’.
The year prior, Baez performed at a rally in support of politicians Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, joining forces with Neil Young and Rogers, again, to perform ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’.
Additionally, in June 2025, Baez said of Trump’s first six months of his second term, “Nobody could have predicted that it would turn into what it’s turned into, because that’s for other countries, the ‘shithole countries.’ This is turning into a shithole country because of them. It’s all the evil things that shithole countries do.”
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