When Patti Smith met Donald Trump: “One of the most horrendous people that I ever met”
Largely, Patti Smith doesn’t have a bad word to say about anyone.
Take a look at her social media; her feeds are a run of celebrations, honouring the birth and death of her heroes, sharing the work of people she admires, and generally lifting up good people of the past, present and new activists of the future. But that doesn’t mean she loves everyone – she just has a moral compass.
On Smith’s social media presence, another essential element of her life and work now appears. Back as early as her emergence in the 1970s, the punk-poet has always been political. In Just Kids, she writes about watching election results come in with her family and feeling genuine distress about how she would help the world. She writes about huge cultural events but with a specific and keen interest in their broader impact, like whether Woodstock genuinely did anything for peace or how certain artists used their platform.
Since politics has played a role in her work in both covert and overt ways. ‘People Have The Power’ is an outright stance, written as a rallying cry to the public to stand up and speak up, singing, “the people have the power to redeem the work of fools.”
Elsewhere, though, the message is more nuanced. Way back in 2004, Smith was already using her voice for the Palestinian people, writing ‘Peaceable Kingdom’ about their struggle and her grief towards the violence and loss of life faced by people in Gaza.
Today, that call is loud and clear as her online presence is almost dedicated to the cause, using her platform to spread vital awareness and remind others like her, in a privileged position, to be using their voice too. So while Smith emerged in the rowdy punk scene where bad behaviour was often taken as part of the deal, her moral compass has always been sharp, strong and well-pointed, making it easy to spot an evil man from a mile off.
But really, when it comes to Donald Trump, no one has to work that hard to realise he’s not fighting the good fight like she is. When Smith met Trump in a strange coming together of two New York figures no one would ever put side by side, she wasn’t best pleased to be sharing a table with him.
“Donald Trump and I were both living in New York, and I met him at a dinner party when I was about 30,” she recalled before putting it plainly and simply – “He was one of the most horrendous people that I ever met.” In an interview with The Times, Smith remembered the evening with total disdain as she laid out her first impression of the now-president, calling him “Bullish, conceited, full of himself.”
However, the key thing, and what has always been the key thing with Smith, is hope. “I didn’t like him then, and I don’t like him now,” she said as one of many artists who have always vocally opposed the president. However, while distress over the world’s leaders could make a person feel hopeless or apathetic, that has never been her way. Instead, while those at the top fail, she turns to the youth.
Just as she sings of in her ultimate activist-engaging anthem, she said, “At the same time, young people have given me so much hope,” reminding everyone that the people have the power.
