Metal Anarchy

System Of A Down drummer John Dolmayan has voiced his support for United States president Donald Trump yet again. The drummer, who has continuously made headlines for right-wing political ramblings covering his support for Trump, his controversial views on racism, his divisive claims regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, etc., believes the convicted felon “brings a little sanity back.”

Dolmayan told Lilian Tahmasian the following when asked if the opposing political views cause issues within the band:

“Yeah, well, we had problems with that, because Serj is very outspoken. And he has one way of thinking. Some things we agree with — the rest of the band — some things we don’t. Some things we’re exactly on par with. My belief system is a little different.

With Serj, it was, like, well, we don’t want that to be the only thing, because we don’t feel like that’s the only element of System Of A Down. It’s a big part of the band. Justice is a big part of that. Justice has no politics. It’s either just or unjust. It has no political affiliation. It either is or it isn’t. There’s a lot of things that come into play — morality. So we just didn’t want it to be the only focal point.

And Serj spent a lot of time talking about political stuff on stage. Now, I personally love it. The more crazy he got and into it, I believe anything that’s passionately displayed is worth listening to — even if I completely disagree with it. If you’re really passionate about it, I wanna know what you think. So I like that part of it. But the rest of the band, and me too, felt like it was just too much of our focus.”

“Lyrically, we don’t just sing about politics — we sing about love, death, hate, stupid things, inane things, artistic things, insane things. It’s all these things that makeSystem Of A Down so unique. So we didn’t want the focal point to be politics. But that’s kind of what Serj wanted to talk about at the time. So we’re in a weird situation where I don’t wanna limit what he has to say, but I don’t wanna limit what people think of me either.

And also, you have to understand that when we first came out, nobody knew who Armenians were. We’re an ex-Soviet Union, communist country, who is in a bitter hundred-plus year battle with an enemy that is one of the biggest allies of the United States. We have missile bases there. Let’s see. It’s a very conservative mindset — in the early 2000s, especially. And the pendulum swung all the way to the ridiculous. But these were not popular opinions.

The Zack De la Rochas [Rage Against The Machine vocalist,] the Serj Tankians, these were not the popular opinions. It became the popular opinions, but they were not at the time. And I guess I agreed more with it back then than I did at a later time because I felt like once it becomes the status quo in the popular opinion, then you’ve gotta really shift your way of thinking. And if you don’t, then you’re governed by a way of thinking that you had at a more adolescent time in your attaining wisdom and everything else. And I believe you should always be open to changing your opinions on things.”

He continued:

“First of all, being liberal, most of the time, is for the idealistic thinkers. We all believe in liberal concepts. I believe in a lot of liberal concepts. I believe in social concepts as well. I don’t want people to starve to death, I want people to have homes. But I also believe in self-sacrifice, and hard work will get you to where you wanna be. And I don’t wanna subsidize somebody that is lazy or doesn’t wanna pursue something because I worked very hard to get to where I am. Whether I had been successful or not, I was going to work extremely hard on whatever I did. So, there’s a balance there.

We live in societies. What’s the benefit of that? It’s that we can help people through a collective effort. So it doesn’t cost you much — we’ve all gotta help. So that you can assist someone that otherwise maybe they’ve had horrible things happen to them and you can give them that helping hand. If someone’s drowning, you don’t say, ‘Well, you should have learned how to swim better.’ You give them a hand to get them out of the water so they don’t drown. So, as a society, I believe that’s what we should do. Now, what happened is it went off a little off kilter. It went off the deep end.

I don’t believe in the ‘woke’ culture at all. It’s no secret what my belief system is. And I also don’t think having lifelong career politicians is good for society.

Here in the United States, it’s a constitutional republic. And we have people that are in Congress and the Senate, and the objective in the beginning of that was you would have a farmer, and a couple of months a year they would go and they would figure out what the government is gonna do and then they would go back to farming.

And some of ’em were engineers and some of ’em were lawyers and some of ’em were doctors and business owners and it was a big mix — engineers, all these different people who had different life experiences. And they would go and they would dictate what the government did. Now we have people who go to law school and then they become an aide, and they’d say, ‘Well, should I go this, that? I’ll go this way and I’ll go this way.’ And then they spend the next 40 years of their lives toeing the company line.

And then both of them take money from special interest groups. So it’s like a diamond. It goes from the indoctrination that they get in college or university — depending on where they went, it’s different indoctrination — and then they pick a side, Democrat or Republican, and then they all take money from the same pool.”

Dolmayan then reaffirmed his support for Trump:

“I’m glad he won, because it brings a little sanity back. Irrespective of what you hear out there, it’s much more sane with him than it was without him. We need law and order. Just like you lock your door at night, you don’t want somebody coming to your house when you have secure borders. We need people coming to this country.

We all came to this country. And we need more people coming in. And the United States should always be a bastion for people that need it. Maybe they get oppression one way or the other in their countries and they need to leave. Or maybe they just want a fresh start. Or maybe they wanna be part of something that’s unique and interesting like the United States. And they should be allowed to do that, but do it a certain way — pay taxes, whatever you need to do, and live your life.”

Dolmayan also shared his thoughts on sex education:

“I don’t care if you’re transgender, gay, whatever you are, live your life, I support you in that, but keep it away from kids. Keep sex away from kids, in general. I’ve got a 9-year-old. I don’t want them learning about this shit. I want them concentrating on having a good time, building friendships that might last their whole lives and learning about things that matter. I want them to learn about poets and artists. I want them to learn history so that they know what not to repeat. And geography. Most people in the United States — I bet you — cannot name the continents.

The continents. Think about that. A lot of people don’t know the Pacific and Atlantic. Where are they? The simple things that we take for granted, that we were taught this shit. And we learned it. What are they learning now? I don’t want sex in my classrooms until they’re old enough to have sex. Which is much later, hopefully, for my daughters.”

He also added that his political beliefs aren’t permanent:

“As far as politically — right, left, makes no difference to me. It’s who’s doing wrong at this time. So, if the conservatives go way off on the right and become too religious or whatever the case may be, where they’re infringing on people, then I’m gonna be with the Democrats at that point, because I’m not a politician and I don’t give a shit about the political parties. I’m a realist. And whatever’s good for people, that’s what I’m gonna fight for. So I’ll always be the enemy. I can never win.”

“Serj was very against Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and I was like, okay, well, a lot of people listen to System Of A Down and they’re only getting one perspective and it’s a perspective I don’t agree with. If there’s a kid in school and that kid is surrounded… I remember what it was like being a kid in school. You don’t wanna stand out. You don’t wanna be the focal point. You just wanna fit in and enjoy your life.

And I remember what it felt like to stand out, ’cause I’ve always been a big mouth, right? And I just imagined some kid in a school who doesn’t believe what everybody else is saying and refuses to go along with it. Those kids commit suicide, they have difficult times in their lives, and I want them to know that somebody famous doesn’t think the way everybody else thinks, and it’s okay for them not to think the way everybody else thinks, too. And if that costs me a couple of hundred thousand followers, I don’t give a fuck. If it costs me all my followers, I don’t give a fuck.

Because if one kid feels better about it, it’s worth it. What the hell are those followers doing for me anyway? I don’t monetize my platforms. It means nothing to me to have the followers. What it means something to me is help whoever I can help.”

[via Blabbermouth]