'Hostile Government Takeover' is the viral TikTok song helping people through a second Trump term

It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time, and it has been a lot – what with the Republican and convicted felon eyeing up buying Greenland; renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the 'Gulf of America'; blaming diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) for a plane crash in Washington D.C. and sharing his idea of America ‘taking over’ the Gaza Strip in a move already condemned as “ethnic cleansing”.

Oh, and as a reminder, we’ve got four years of this.

And as a result of that frankly depressing fact, people have turned to art and music to try and find ways of pushing through it all.

Enter Todd, better known online as AGiftFromTodd, who has summed up the whole situation in a song which has gone viral across social media.

Filming himself in his kitchen, Todd sings: “We’re in the middle of a hostile government takeover / I wanna talk about it but I’ll be late for work / And if you’re saying ‘wait a minute, who we have to stop this?’ / We had one, but you didn’t want that lady in office.

“Now that we’re all part of a Nigerian prince scam / Surprise, surprise, it end up being a white man / Oh, I just wanna know what the hell do I do?

“Probably drink.”

Oof.

At the time of writing, it’s had more than 4.5 million views on TikTok and 3.3 million views on Instagram, with one top comment on the latter joking that the song has gone “double platinum in my house”.

A second commenter asks: “What’s the word for harmonizing and dissociating at the same time?”

Todd has since filmed a four-part harmony version of the track, “All The Stars” singer SZA has seen it, and it’s even got an EDM remix from artist Vinny Marchi which has racked up almost 4 million views on Instagram itself.

Social media users have since been calling for Marchi’s take to appear on Spotify, with one describing the track as “both therapy and fitness” for them.

“So this is the Panic happening at the Disco,” quipped another.

A third wrote: “Most millennial reaction ever. World is burning = dance it out.”

In a follow-up video 24 hours after posting the song, TJ thanked everyone for the support, describing the reaction as “absolutely nuts”.

He said: “I am going to remake it and put it out on Spotify, Apple Music, all that. I’m just waiting for SoundCloud to give me the Artist Pro account and approve me for a Spotify and Apple Music account, and then once that happens, I’ll remake the song.

“Wow, just an outpouring of love I didn’t expect … People doing EDM remixes and adding your harmonies and all that.

“The last, I don’t know, eight hours, all I’ve been able to think about is like, ‘Wow, other people are connecting with and singing back something that I thought in my head and just on a whim, put on the internet, and all of a sudden it’s affected people to such a degree, and other people feel the exact same way that I do, more than I could ever have imagined’.”

As for the EDM remix and it being released on streaming platforms, TJ has confirmed he has “already reached out” to Marchi about this.

“We’ll see what he says,” he replied.

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