Life has not been the same since the White Stripes broke up in 2011—nor, for that matter, since I figured out that the band’s members Jack and Meg White were exes rather than siblings. (I have this issue in reverse with Tegan and Sara; I always think they’re simply celesbian doppelgängers, when in reality they’re identical twins. The more you know!)
But when 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump used the song “Seven Nation Army” in a campaign video without authorization, the band leapt into action to stop their 2003 megahit from becoming MAGA pump-up playlist fuel. On Monday, Jack and Meg White filed a copyright lawsuit in New York—and personally, I hope that they can channel some of this fighting-back-against-the-man energy to Democrats up and down the ballot in time for November’s presidential election.
The suit that Jack and Meg White filed for unspecified damages accused Trump of “flagrant misappropriation,” and it didn’t hold back from sharing the onetime bandmates’ personal opinions on the former president, either, reading in part: “We vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by Defendant Trump.” Well, yes!
Trump’s best legal defense is likely to be a claim of fair use, and while his team hasn’t responded publicly to the lawsuit yet, I have to admit that seeing people take Trump to court—even if it is a pair of indie-rock musicians—has not yet gotten old for me.
The White Stripes aren’t the first musicians to formally insist that Trump stop using their music: ABBA, Lionel Richie, Sia and Lorde haven’t been particularly into it, either. Hopefully, the high-profile nature of this suit (which includes a reference to Trump as a “fascist” on Jack White’s Instagram) will scare the Trump campaign away from associating the songs that many of us treasure—or, at least, came to treasure after slowly and painfully learning their chords on the guitar in middle-school music class—with Trump’s signature blend of buffoonery and cruelty. But if for some outlandish reason Trump wins the lawsuit, at least we still have the music of less-popular-yet-equally-good-in-my-humble-opinion Jack White side project The Raconteurs, right?