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System of a Down’s John Dolmayan Ruminates About the Woes of Being ‘Conservative’

(GERMANY OUT) System of a Down (1995 in Kalifornien gegründete Alternative-Metal-Band, armenischer Herkunft)"Wake Up The Souls"-TourSystem of a Down besteht aus: Serj Tankian (Gesang, Keyboard), Daron Malakian (Gitarre, Gesang), Shavarsh "Shavo" Odadjian (Bass) und John Dolmayan (Schlagzeug, seit 1997)Lanxess-Arena Köln (Photo by Brill/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

If you had “cancel culture” and/or “AOC” on your bingo card for the next topics System of a Down‘s conservative drummer, John Dolmayan, would rant about on a podcast, you may want to check to see if you’re a winner.

On the Uncle Dad Talks podcast, Dolmayan took a deep dive into cancel culture is while doubling down on his usual comparison of it to McCarthyism.

“What’s happening right now with this cancel culture bullshit is really destructive, and it always backfires on the people that are instituting it,” Dolmayan said. “We have to be really careful, because in the ’50s, we had something called McCarthyism where people that were hyper-liberal, and a lot of people that were considered communists, basically they lost their entire lives. That whole generation of great artists and writers were just ostracized. We have to be careful because if we allow that to happen in any way, it could always come back to the other side.”

But while Dolmayan may feel that being called out or chastised for his beliefs — like supporting Gina Carano after she was fired by Disney or suggesting that Black Lives Matter is just “a democratic fundraising tool of a communist agenda” — is comparable to what Sen. Joseph McCarthy was pushing in the early 1950s, a high school history teacher should be able to explain to him that it’s really not. In the meantime, the drummer (who somehow still gets along with his brother-in-law, System of a Down lead singer, Serj Tankian) will just be repeating his disdain for the Democrats in Congress, with a particular emphasis on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“I want what’s best for everyone, but I want everybody to have the freedom to do these things,” Dolmayan said. “I don’t like big government. I don’t like the agenda of a lot of the Democratic platform these days. I think AOC is a moron. I just have to put that out there. I like to say that in every conversation. Look, at the end of the day, I just want everybody to have equal opportunity to be successful in whatever that success is. And I want people to be motivated by doing the right thing in life, not rewarded for doing the wrong thing.”