Friday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, U2 opened with a fiery version of “Desire.” Halfway through the song, confetti cascaded down from the rafters on a delighted and energized audience. The last time we saw a confetti drop at a U2 show was during “Until The End Of The World” on the Innocence + Experience tour, when the band littered fans with pages from Alice In Wonderland, Dante’s Inferno and Psalms. But on Friday night, as Bono was belting out “for the love of money, money, money” and shouting, “Las Vegas, are you ready to gamble?” in sync with video clips of Donald Trump’s apocalyptic announcement that “the American Dream is dead,” Trump-dollars rained down from the heavens.
In the grand fashion of Zoo TV, those Trump-dollars were loaded with tiny aphorisms. Some were affirmations, some were warnings. Here are the messages they contained….
(All messages were in caps; notes in parentheses are mine)
Front side:
MAKE AMERICA HATE AGAIN
IN DOLLAR WE TRUST
THE DIS-UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
10000000000
NON FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE
SERIES 2016
MONEY, MONEY, I WANT MORE MONEY
IHR 09232016
12
Back side:
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE PROMISED LAND BELONGS TO THOSE WHO NEED IT MOST
IF WE EVER FORGET THAT WE ARE ONE NATION UNDER GOD THEN WE WILL BE A NATION GONE UNDER –RONALD REAGAN
1 BUT NOT THE SAME
AMERICA’S NOT JUST A COUNTRY, IT’S AN IDEA
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
THIS LAND IS MY LAND
MY DREAM IS OF A PLACE AND A TIME WHERE AMERICA WILL ONCE AGAIN BE SEEN AS THE LAST BEST HOPE OF EARTH (Abraham Lincoln)
AMERICA HAS NEVER BEEN UNITED BY BLOOD OR BIRTH OR SOIL. WE ARE BOUND BY IDEALS (George W. Bush, Inaugural address, 2001)
OTHERS MAY HATE YOU, BUT THOSE WHO HATE YOU DON’T WIN UNLESS YOU HATE THEM (Richard Nixon’s final speech, August 9, 1974)
THINK ABOUT EVERY PROBLEM, EVERY CHALLENGE, WE FACE. THE SOLUTION TO EACH STARTS WITH EDUCATION (George W. Bush, April 18, 2001)
EVERY GUN THAT IS MADE, EVERY WARSHIP LAUNCHED, EVERY ROCKET FIRED SIGNIFIES, IN THE FINAL SENSE, A THEFT FROM THOSE WHO HUNGER AND ARE NOT FED, THOSE WHO ARE COLD AND ARE NOT CLOTHED (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Change for Peace speech, April 16, 1953)
NOBODY WILL EVER DEPRIVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OF THE RIGHT TO VOTE EXCEPT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THEMSELVES—AND THE ONLY WAY THEY COULD DO THAT IS BY NOT VOTING (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Radio address from the White House, October 5, 1944)
MONEY IS NOT THE ONLY ANSWER BUT IT MAKES DIFFERENCE (Barack Obama)
I WOULD RATHER BELONG TO A POOR NATION THAT WAS FREE THAN TO A RICH NATION THAT HAD CEASED TO BE IN LOVE WITH LIBERTY (Woodrow Wilson, October 27, 1913)
A PRESIDENT’S HARDEST TASK IS NOT TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT, BUT TO KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT (Lyndon B. Johnson, State of the Union address, January 4, 1965)
WE ARE THE CHANGE THAT WE SEEK (Barack Obama, February 5, 2008)
THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF (Franklin D. Roosevelt, first inaugural address, March 4, 1933)
(c) Neufeld/@U2, 2016.