# Republican Fanboys and the Bands that Hate Them **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 17, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815 "2012-08-17T20:15:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/61 "2012-08-18T20:20:51Z")
> [@Hookit](#): > > You honestly believe Lennon gave two shits about the causes that he spoke of? The guy was an entertainer and nothing more.All that “Give Peace A Chance” and bed protests were marketing ploys to draw in liberals,that’s all. ::snerk:: Lennon, that _bastard_. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/62 "2012-08-18T20:40:06Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Eh. I like lots of music that has a political slant I disagree with. Seems to me you’d have to be pretty small minded to want to live in an echo chamber. Art is something you react to on an emotional level. Real life politics is an intellectual exercise. There’s a difference between living in an echo chamber and identifying your favorite band as an overtly political band whose lyrics are diametrically opposed to your world-view and political philosophy. Ryan calling RATM his favorite band would be akin to a stereotypical liberal hippie type claiming to love Toby Keith or the Charlie Daniels Band, or a Jehovah’s Witness claiming that their favorite song was “God Bless the USA”, or a Mormon saying that “Orgazmo” was their favorite movie. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/63 "2012-08-18T21:43:40Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > There’s a difference between living in an echo chamber and identifying your favorite band as an overtly political band whose lyrics are diametrically opposed to your world-view and political philosophy. Ryan calling RATM his favorite band would be akin to a stereotypical liberal hippie type claiming to love Toby Keith or the Charlie Daniels Band, or a Jehovah’s Witness claiming that their favorite song was “God Bless the USA”, or a Mormon saying that “Orgazmo” was their favorite movie. He didn’t identify it as his favorite band. That was a distortion introduced by HuffPo, which of course was taken at face value by most posters here. If you go to the source, the NYT article, it was a throw-away line to tie him to his GenX demographic: > [@](#): > > Yet even if he is viewed as politically pure by the modern-day standards of his party’s base, he is not without contradictions. The nation’s first Generation X vice-presidential candidate, he is an avowed proponent of free markets whose family has interests in oil leases. But he counts Rage Against the Machine, which sings about the greed of oil companies and whose Web site praises the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street movement, among his favorite bands. Methinks this is much ado about nothing. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/64 "2012-08-18T21:50:13Z")
I dunno, sounds pretty much like how we’ve been discussing it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/65 "2012-08-18T21:56:54Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > I dunno, sounds pretty much like how we’ve been discussing it. Read the whole NYT article. It’s a throw-away line in a very long article. People here are acting like Ryan is out there on the stump every day proclaiming his love of RATM. For all we know, he likes to listen to them when he does his power workouts and said that to the reporter interviewing him to throw him or her off. In fact, we don’t even know if he told that to the reporter himself, or someone else did. There is no actual quote from Ryan on the subject. There is only the reporter saying he counts them “among his favorite bands”. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/66 "2012-08-18T22:59:10Z")
> [@Hookit](#): > > You honestly believe Lennon gave two shits about the causes that he spoke of? The guy was an entertainer and nothing more.All that “Give Peace A Chance” and bed protests were marketing ploys to draw in liberals,that’s all. Of course he cared. Do you think he spent all that time in the bed with Yoko for the fun of it? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/67 "2012-08-18T23:06:31Z")
> [@Hookit](#): > > You honestly believe Lennon gave two shits about the causes that he spoke of? The guy was an entertainer and nothing more.All that “Give Peace A Chance” and bed protests were marketing ploys to draw in liberals,that’s all. Dammit, he had me fooled! Thanks for setting the record straight. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/68 "2012-08-18T23:16:14Z")
> [@Hookit](#): > > You honestly believe Lennon gave two shits about the causes that he spoke of? The guy was an entertainer and nothing more.All that “Give Peace A Chance” and bed protests were marketing ploys to draw in liberals,that’s all. Yeah, liberals, hippies and peaceniks. That’s where the big money is. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/69 "2012-08-19T02:15:16Z")
> [@lavenderviolet](#): > > There may even be some liberals out there who enjoy Ted Nugent. He disgusts me. One vote against. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/70 "2012-08-19T02:36:32Z")
One of my favorite musicals is _Rent_. Fire away. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/71 "2012-08-19T11:36:43Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > One of my favorite musicals is _Rent_. > > Fire away. Are you running for office on a platform trying to do away with, say, low-rent housing? Then it would be worth taking a shot. As a “conservative civilian” you can and should like whatever you want… ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/72 "2012-08-19T12:11:15Z")
Perhaps he’s too dumb to realize he’s the machine that they’re raging against. Either that or he could just kill a man. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/73 "2012-08-19T13:00:16Z")
What boggles my mind more than what the guy said are the people defending this, and how completely they seem to not understand what’s being said. It seems they want to believe having any disagreement with the message of an artist is somehow the equivalent to a band that hates what you stand for so much that, when they find out you like them, they put out a press release saying how much they don’t like you. No, **Bricker** , your liking Rent, even if you were a homophobic bigot who wanted AIDS to spread and kill off the undesirables, would not be the equivalent of what Ryan did. The question is only whether Ryan is too stupid to find out that people hate him, or whether, in my mind more likely, he was pandering, and just picked a band that he’d heard of, vaguely remembering they were liberal. It absolutely was not, no matter how you slice it, the idea that Ryan doesn’t care what people think of him. He’s running in the country’s most consequential popularity contest! If a political candidate doesn’t care what people think of him, he’s already lost. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/74 "2012-08-19T15:17:31Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It absolutely was not, no matter how you slice it, the idea that Ryan doesn’t care what people think of him. He’s running in the country’s most consequential popularity contest! If a political candidate doesn’t care what people think of him, he’s already lost. There’s still no quote from Ryan on the topic, and for all we know it was a throwaway comment. Hell, maybe it’s completely wrong. I saw an interview in People where he said he likes classic rock, AC/DC that kind of thing. But let’s assume it’s true, and at some point Ryan made a comment that he likes RATM’s music. That said, what you seem to be missing is that there is a percentage extremely close to zero (if not zero) of people likely to be influenced by a Tom Morello rant who might otherwise vote for Mitt Romney. This matters not an atom’s worth. It will have no impact. This was not some miscalculation on Ryan’s part now backfiring on him. It is a non-event. The disconnect seems to be that some people find it inconceivable that anyone could be indifferent to a band like RATM holding him in contempt. (“How could he not have known this? What did he think would happen, given the intensity of the band’s hatred for him?”) At the end of the day, it just doesn’t matter, and it never had any possibility of mattering. So, two things: I don’t know why that is so hard to understand that it needs to be repeated. Second, I don’t get the heat around this, as if it matters. (“You guys just aren’t getting it! Why are you defending this?” Defending what? What needs defending? What occurred that anyone cares about?) ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/75 "2012-08-19T15:34:16Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Yep, it’s not just June or July, but all of Summer 2012… Its the summer of our discontent. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/76 "2012-08-19T15:37:33Z")
**Stratocaster** I started the thread, and really am not looking to sound feisty - sorry. We’ve been doing okay so far. You say a couple of things that I want to comment on: - you say this won’t affect the minds of folks who’d vote for R&R. For the most part, I totally agree. But if this election is tighter than recent polls suggest, and a swing of 1% or 2% matters, then that tiny slice of truly undecided voters that remain _could matter_. I have had that this slice in mind when I have been commenting. - as for the “you don’t get it!!!” tone. It hasn’t felt like you will acknowledge that as _political craft_, it seems like a tactical slip. The NYTimes reported that he calls himself a big fan and simply doesn’t pay attention to the lyrics. Given the nature of RAtM this seems obviously clueless. Now, while 99% of R&R voters aren’t paying attention, one or two Undecideds might say “_That’s_ kinda dumb.” ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/77 "2012-08-19T15:54:30Z")
I just don’t see this as material in any sense. 1 or 2% either way could change this election, it’s true–and this will not produce a .00001% shift, for the reasons noted (I calculated this scientifically, believe me; never you mind the math behind it, it’s too complicated. ;)). And given that, as an issue of political craft, it’s not important. “You may alienate the RATM tribe!” might be a factor for Obama. It ain’t for Romney. They aren’t voting for him. And there may be people who shift to Romney because of RATM’s rant (though I’d say that shift would be similarly low, for similar reasons). ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/78 "2012-08-19T16:13:54Z")
That’s cool. I can see it being part of the doubt that an Undecided feels in their gut as they reach for the lever, but only as part of a larger overall impression. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/79 "2012-08-19T21:49:31Z")
To me it comes off as something of a Marshall McLuhan moment: “You know nothing of my work.” Amusing as hell, but not really a comment on his tastes. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815/80 "2012-08-19T22:31:22Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Ryan calling RATM his favorite band would be akin to a stereotypical liberal hippie type claiming to love Toby Keith or the Charlie Daniels Band, or a Jehovah’s Witness claiming that their favorite song was “God Bless the USA”, or a Mormon saying that “Orgazmo” was their favorite movie. I’m a pretty hard-left atheist queer, but “Devil Went Down to Georgia” is a kick-ass song. The only thing surprising about Ryan’s musical tastes is that I didn’t realize there was any reason to like Rage Against the Machine _except_ their politics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-fanboys-and-the-bands-that-hate-them/631815.md?page=5)