British protesters campaign to push Green Day's 'American Idiot' to top of the charts ahead of Donald Trump's visit
Green Day’s Grammy-nominated hit 'American Idiot' is currently working itself back into the top of the British music charts — 14 years after its initial release. And it's all thanks to an innovative way to troll US President Donald Trump ahead of his upcoming UK visit, scheduled this Friday, July 13.
British protestors have been furiously downloading and streaming the 2004 single since last week with the hopes that 'American Idiot' will be No. 1 just in time for Trump’s visit. “Let’s give him the welcome he deserves,” social media accounts for the campaign wrote, adding, “We’re doing this for the amusement as it WILL annoy him.”
Oddly enough, the gimmick seems to be working. As Vox points out, 'American Idiot' is already No. 1 on Amazon UK’s bestseller list, and as of Tuesday, it’s climbed to No. 18 on the UK’s official charts.
Campaign organizers Keith Curle and Geoff Thomas urged people to listen to the song as many times as possible between July 6 and July 12 in order to give the US president a typically British passive-aggressive welcome!
The trip will be Trump's first official visit there since his presidential inauguration in January 2017. Trump plans to meet with Prime Minister Theresa May in Chequers and travel to Windsor Castle to meet Queen Elizabeth II, among other things.
In addition to making the Green Day number rise in the UK’s charts, British citizens have also crowdsourced over $23,000 to buy a giant orange balloon that resembles an angry baby Trump wearing a diaper! Although London Mayor Sadiq Khan originally banned the balloon from flying over the city, after an online petition garnered over 10,000 signatures, he decided to allow it. While the baby Trump balloon floats over the London skyline, local police are also expecting over 100,000 demonstrators to take to the streets, according to the New York Times.
While 'American Idiot' obviously was not specifically written with Trump in mind, the politically charged track has been given a new life since his election. And although Green Day haven’t officially supported the campaign, they have expressed their anti-Trump sentiments plenty in the last two years, keeping in line with their usual attitude of post-punk unrest.
Previously, they chanted “No Trump/ No KKK/ No fascist USA!” during a performance at the American Music Awards shortly after the 2016 Presidential Election. Earlier this year, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong blasted Trump supporters (some of whom he acknowledged were also Green Day fans), saying, “I have no problem telling ignorant fucks like you to go to hell.” Green Day also depicted Trump as an apocalyptic zombie in the 2017 music video for 'Back in the USA'.