Why the Politics of ‘The U.S. vs. John Lennon’ are the Politics of Now
Doc director John Scheinfeld on John Lennon and the plentiful parallels between Nixon and Trump
John Lennon: beloved Beatle, legendary singer/songwriter, the original proponent of those now trendy all-over-again-for-the-first-time circular sunglasses, and … public enemy number one? Well, for a minute, kind of, yes.
For a brief period in the early 1970s, the man who implored you to “Give Peace a Chance” was not exactly given the fairest of chances himself by the United States government. Instead, under the Nixon administration, he was put under surveillance by the Hoover-led FBI, and the INS subsequently set about attempting to deport him as an “undesirable alien.” Lennon was, in fact, even under a 60-day deportation order for most of 1972 and ’73, which he managed to skirt again and again through the help of one clearly quite talented immigration lawyer, Leon Wildes, before finally being granted his greencard several years later — when Nixon was no longer president.
What did the formerly mop-topped member of the Fab Four do, exactly, to so raise the ire of one Tricky Dick? “The sort of official reason is something about I was busted for pot, but the real reason is because I’m a peacenik,” Lennon himself explained at the time during an interview with a young (but still mustachioed, because some things really are forever) Geraldo Rivera.
The interview is one of many, both historic and contemporary, compiled for the compelling documentary, The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which chronicles the artist’s life from his days as a lonely, yes-already-rebellious orphan, to member of the most influential band of all time, to solo artist and political activist (stop blaming Yoko; if Paul McCartney can do it, you can too). But as the film’s title implies, the emphasis is on his time as an outspoken activist for peace and the government’s corresponding response — a response which, when viewed through the notoriously heightened lens of hindsight, can’t help but present strong parallels to our contemporary political climate.
“What most people don’t remember is that 1972 was the first year that 18 year olds could vote, and the Nixon administration was very concerned that someone like John Lennon could turn younger voters against him,” John Scheinfeld, who wrote and directed the documentary in partnership with David Leaf, tells Outtake. “And here we are today, in 2017, and we have in some people’s view an equally paranoid president who is very keen to silence those who disagree with him. We see that very clearly in his tweets — if Twitter had been around in the ‘70s perhaps Nixon would have done the same thing — but here we are, and the president goes after people in his tweets. I think we’re sort of in a similar landscape at the moment, where if you disagree with what the government sees as proper policy, they come after you.”
Scheinfeld is certainly not alone in seeing some rather shocking similarities between the actions of our current controversial administration and that of the man who managed to make a once desirable Washington D.C. office building synonymous with political scandal. Since Trump’s rather unceremonious firing of FBI director James Comey, comparisons to Nixon’s brazen 1973 dismissal of special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox have been plentiful — and understandably so. Trump is the first sitting president to be so bold as to fire an official — nay, the official — leading an investigation into potential misconduct by his own campaign since Nixon carried out his now infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” in October of 1973. (Spoiler alert: this did not end so well for ole 37.)
“There is a famous quote by philosopher George Santayana: those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Scheinfeld says. “I think that’s the best way to look at what is happening today. Many people have called the current president ignorant, and I think whatever adjective you use to describe him, he certainly does not seem to have learned from the lessons of the past.” And Scheinfeld would know: in addition to The U.S. vs. John Lennon, he also produced and directed Dick Cavett’s Watergate, a documentary that delves into the depths of the Watergate scandal as seen through the lens of the popular talk show host who avidly reported on it, for PBS in 2014. (His latest film, Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary, is currently playing nationwide.)
“What you see now is very much what you saw then,” Scheinfeld continues. “There were illegal activities, and what made it worse was the cover up. They denied denied denied [ahem], they tried to shift direction [cough, witch hunt, cough], they fired people [here we go again], they attacked people who tried to tell the truth [come on now], they went after the press in a major way [oh boy], and what did it all come to? It was a golden age of reporting — not fake news. He had fired the guy who was coming after him hard, and ten months later he was gone, and I see that parallel here. Comey and the FBI were breathing down the president’s neck, and he knew it.”
But the parallels don’t stop there. “The total inaction, the spinelessness, of congress, meaning the Republicans — their response to the president today is very similar to what we saw during the ‘70s when they were going after John Lennon,” he adds. “They supported the president, they knew he was wrong, they saw it going in a very bad direction, but until they made the political calculation that it wouldn’t hurt them to separate themselves from the president and his policies, they stayed there. And I think we’re in that moment, now, where they’re still seeing value in supporting the president. But I suspect that will change as well.” (Looking at you, Maverick.)
All, of course, is not exactly as it was. Nixon had the justice department and the FBI “very much in his pocket,” Scheinfeld says, but today we, thankfully, don’t see that happening. Another thing Scheinfeld doesn’t necessarily see happening — yet, anyway? The equivalent of a John Lennon. (Sorry, celebrity activists.) But that doesn’t mean that the peaceful protest movement he fostered isn’t alive and well. Thriving, even. And so too is a proliferation of news coverage like Lennon likely wouldn’t believe.
“I think it’s important to realize that we are living in a very different world now than John Lennon was in the 1970s. At that time there were only four TV networks,” he explains. “Today, we have hundreds of channels, but more to the point, we have an addition. We now have news channels, 24 hours a days, that are filling the airwaves with news coverage, and it makes the world a very different place. People have access to info on a consistent, minute by minute basis, which was not present in the ‘70s, so you do see an acceleration of events, of opinions, of reactions.” Perhaps that is why “in just over 100 days, we’re seeing, hearing, and experiencing things that didn’t take place until a full six, six and a half years into the Nixon administration,” Scheinfeld posits.
“Our society is run by insane people, for insane objectives … I’d be very pleased to know what they think they’re doing. I think they’re all insane,” Lennon said during a 1970s television interview that may as well have aired last week. Fast forward 40 plus years to our fair haired 45, and copious mental health professionals are agreeing with his still-all-too-relevant sentiment.
“The power of film, the power of documentary film, is to tell these stories from the past so that people do not forget,” Scheinfeld explains. “So that people will see the parallels. They will remember. They will not be fooled again.” The U.S. vs. John Lennon and the story of the Nixon administration is in many ways “a giant reminder, a wakeup call, that just because you were elected to the highest office in the land does not make you good, it does not make you honest, it does not make you credible, or, as we’re seeing now, especially, it does not make you competent — and we’re all suffering from it now, no matter your political persuasion.”
“But as dark as this time appears to be, I do think at the end of the day the sun is going to poke through the clouds and we’ll get our country back, to use a horrible expression from the right,” he adds. “In the ‘70s, no one could have imagined a president would be that corrupt. Today we can. Because it has happened before.”
Or as Lennon said: “Time wounds all heels.”
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