Punk Isn't Necessarily Progressive
I saw an image on Instagram today that said "How do you grow up listening to punk and hip hop and still end up being a bootlicker?" I see this sentiment a lot; I would like for it to be true. But the fact that it's pretty commonly expressed means that there are definitely a lot of people who did in fact grow up listening to punk (or hip hop, but that's not my domain and so I'll just leave it alone), and who are now absolute bootlickers, proper fascists. I certainly can name at least a dozen people I knew as a teenager in Los Angeles in the 1990s, who listened to punk, and who are now solidly MAGA.
I think we need to shatter this dream that punk is somehow incompatible with being rightwing. For clarity, I'll define "bootlicker" here as someone who holds rightwing political views, supports candidates or parties that are openly fascist (e.g. Donald Trump, Nigel Farage), and who, by virtue of rejecting the solidarity they might otherwise share with disadvantaged and marginalized groups such as women, poor people, LGBTQ+ communities, immigrants, non-white people, and others, have instead endorsed current, unjust structures of power. They like and aspire to be the fascist boots who are trying to stomp on us all, hence the "bootlicker" title.
The method here is simple: I'm going to point a bunch of examples of rightwing shit in punk rock. And I'm not even going to touch the explicitly Nazi punk bands, which absolutely exist.
First: Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols openly wore a swastika t-shirt:
One could totally say that he was just doing this to wind people up, and that's true! It was the late 1970s and Britain was full of literally millions of people who had fought the Nazis, had been bombed by them, and lost loved ones to them. Wearing a shirt like that was sure to cause outrage, and that was part of the point; the Sex Pistols were a punk band but they were also obviously a massive publicity stunt. They made a whole movie about it, which was fictionalized in a literal sense but also pretty straightforward about the whole venture being an attempt to make "cash from chaos."
The point here is not that Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols were Nazis. It's that it would be very easy for someone growing up and listening to the Sex Pistols to see their bass player wearing a swastika shirt, and to like the idea of being edgy, or winding people up. (Punk DEFINITELY has a history of doing outrageous shit and then reveling in the outrage.) And once a person starts to get used to the idea that they're edgy and that they do and say outrageous shit just to piss people off, it's actually not that big of a step to starting to believe more genuinely in the outrageous shit they're doing and saying. And there's no question that doing and saying outrageous shit and pretending to believe it in order to make people angry would make someone at least more open to believing what they're saying.
Second piece of evidence: Black Flag's song "White Minority." The quality of that recording sucks and the song kind of sucks too, so let's get right to the lyrics.
We're gonna be a white minority
We won't listen to the majority
We're gonna feel inferiority
We're gonna be white minority
White pride, You're an American
I'm gonna hide
Anywhere I can
Gonna be a white minority
We don't believe there's a possibility
But you just wait and see
Gonna be white minority
White pride, You're an American
I'm gonna hide
Anywhere I can
Gonna be a white minority
There's gonna be large casualties
If we don't find a new territory
We're all gonna die
This is rightwing shit! It's pretty clear that it's intended for a white audience, who is meant to feel angry and afraid at the prospect of not maintaining racial supremacy. What's the problem with being a minority, after all, unless you believe that minorities are or ought to be treated worse? It's also explicitly linked to being "American," a pretty clear statement of hegemonic whiteness in the United States. There are genocidal, "great replacement theory" notes here, with the prediction of "large casualties," and even a kind of neo-colonial suggestion with the need to "find a new territory."
Now, not all of Black Flag's songs are like this. They had a Puerto Rican singer for a while, Ron Reyes. But, as I was saying with Sid Vicious, it's more about the availability and susceptibility of people to rightwing ideas. And here it's impossible to deny that this is a white supremacist song. The ideas articulated here, even if in jest, or even if there are other ideas alongside them, are the same ideas articulated and made manifest in ICE raids today.
Third piece of evidence: the Descendents' song "Hope." This is a much better recording and I think a better song overall, but the lyrics have some serious issues.
Why can't you see you torture me?
You're already thinking about someone else
When he comes home, you'll be in his arms, and I'll be gone
But I know my day will come
I know someday, I'll be the only one
So now you wait for his spark, you know it'll turn you on
He's gonna make you feel the way you wanna feel
When he starts to lie, when he makes you cry
You know I'll be there, my day will come
I know someday, I'll be the only one
Call me selfish, call me what you like, I think it's right
To want someone for all your own, and not to share her love
'Cause I'll have my way, you won't have a say anyway
'Cause I got you, you don't stand a chance
So now you wait for his cock, you know it'll turn you on
He's gonna make you feel the way you wanna feel
When he starts to lie, when he makes you cry
You know I'll be there, my day will come
I know someday, I'll be the only one
My day will come
I know someday, I'll be the only one
So now you want perfection
I see your self-destruction
You don't know what you want
It's gonna take you years to find out
I'm not giving up
And when you've had enough
You'll take your bruised little head, and you'll come running back to me
You know that I'm gonna be the only one
This is some incel shit! Like, I get it, the Descendents definitely have a good sound and on one level the song is just about a guy whose girlfriend cheated on him or left him, it's not totally clear, and he's mad but hopeful that she'll come back. And yet, the song is also radioactive with "nice guy" energy. The singer clearly thinks he's superior but his dumb girlfriend has run off to fuck other guys. And he'll sit around and wait until she comes crying back to him and then I'll guess she'll realize what great guy he is? This is not a song about people freely exercising their own interpersonal and sexual agency.
Did this song make teenage boys into incels? No. But it sure doesn't inoculate them against it. It's absolutely compatible with misogyny, which is clearly linked to support for rightwing politics.
Fourth piece of evidence, moving to more new-school punk now: NOFX's song "Don't Call Me White." Now, NOFX is one my favorite punk bands; Punk in Drublic is one of my favorite albums. I still listen to it today. But this song? It's a denial of white privilege.
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
The connotation's wearing my nerves thin
Could it be semantics generating the mess we're in?
I understand that language breeds stereotypes
But what's the explanation for
The malice, for the spite?
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
I wasn't brought here, I was born
Circumcised, categorized, allegiance sworn
Does this mean I have to take such shit
For being fair skinned? No!
I ain't a part of no conspiracy
I'm just your average Joe
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
Represents everything I hate
The soap shoved in the mouth to cleanse the mind
A vast majority of sheep
A buttoned collar, starched and bleached
Constricting vein, the blood flow to the brain slows
They're so fuckin' ordinary
White
Don't call me white
Oh
We're better off this way
Oh
Say what you're gonna say
So go ahead and label me
An asshole 'cause I can
Accept responsibility
For what I've done
But not for who I am
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
Don't call me white
I get that Fat Mike--the lyricist--is pushing back against a common sentiment, that white people currently living today do not need to accept personal responsibility for bad things that their ancestors. And in a superficial way, that's valid; Fat Mike is not Hernan Cortes. It would be great if the whole concept of race didn't exist, and we could just forget about the pain and injustice it's brought. I also happily acknowledge that NOFX has songs that are much more progressive, at least in the sense of encouraging freedom and solidarity; just to take a song from the same album that gave us "Don't Call Me White," there's "Lori Meyers," about a woman claiming agency through sex work. In that song, the singer judges her harshly--and she responds with full force to condemn his moralizing and articulate her version of freedom outside bourgeois norms of sexuality. That's a great song!
But at the same time, "Don't Call Me White" is a comforting message to white people that their privilege is either non-existent or not their responsibility, and what's missing here is the acknowledgement that white privilege does in fact provide benefits to white people. It's easy for white people to be like, "oh racism, what a load of bullshit, let's just forget it." Non-white people don't get to do that.
The sentiments here track very closely with people I went to high school with, who, then and now, regard the whole racism problem as overblown; they'd always known it was, as this song claims. Of the people I grew up listening to punk rock with who are now clearly bootlickers, all of them loved this song. I can remember people belting it out at full volume when it came on. To the extent that it articulates not-so-subtly an implicit white supremacy, it's completely compatible with contemporary fascism's worldview.
Final example: Pennywise's song "Fuck Authority." Unlike NOFX, I always thought Pennywise sucked. This song bothered me from the start. It sounds okay on the surface; it sounds like an archetypal 1990s Southern California punk song. But something about it always sat uncomfortably.
Someday you gotta find another way
You better right your mind and live by what you say
Today is just another day
Unless you set your sights and try to find a way
I say fuck authority
Silent majority
Raised by the system
Now it's time to rise against them
We're sick of your treason
Sick of your lies
Fuck no, we won't listen
We're gonna open your eyes
Frustration, domination
Feel the rage of a new generation
We're living, we're dying
We're never ever gonna stop, stop trying
Stop trying
Stop trying
Stop trying
You know the time is right to take control
We got to take offense against the status quo
No way, not gonna stand for it today
Fight for your rights, it's time we had our say
I say fuck authority
Silent majority
Raised by the system
Now it's time to rise against them
We're sick of your treason
Sick of your lies
Fuck no, we won't listen
We're gonna open your eyes
Frustration, domination
Feel the rage of a new generation
We're living, we're dying
We're sick and tired of relentless lying
Destroy, enjoy
Your fucking world is our new toy
Dominate, eliminate
You're gonna feel the wrath, wrath of hate
Fuck authority
Silent majority
Raised by the system
Now it's time to rise against them
We're sick of your treason
Sick of your lies
Fuck no, we won't listen
We're gonna open your eyes
Frustration, domination
Feel the rage of a new generation
We're living, we're dying
We're never ever gonna stop, stop trying
Stop trying
Stop dying
Stop dying
The issue is that the song is vague--and in its vagueness, it permits a mirroring of rightwing propaganda (honestly a lot of Pennywise's lyrics are vague and cliche, and that made them so tedious to me). Here, the lyrics never really identify the problem clearly: it's "the system," controlled by "them," who are lying, treasonous; and who does the singer represent? The "silent majority," which, in case you forgot, was a term used by Richard Nixon in 1969 to denote those Americans who were unhappy with things like the Civil Rights movement, feminism, and the welfare state. Those Americans who wanted a return to the more traditional mid-century norms of patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, heteronormativity and more; the people who want to "Make America Great Again" now.
On the one hand, this song and video can be read as a protest anthem, as supporting anarchy; it is very directly against authority! And yet, the vagueness here easily accommodates a rightwing interpretation instead, a more January-6th-flavored version of "fuck [liberal, democratic] authority." Indeed, the notion of a shadowy, treasonous "them" who controls the silent majority by means of some mysterious system, and who must be dominated or eliminated through the new generation's rage clearly echos Nazi rhetoric. The video shows clips of police and riots, and the band performs in front of an upside-down flag, all suggesting that indeed, they do want to reject authority--but leaving totally unanswered the question of which authority, exactly, they with to reject and for what reasons. As with the other examples here, this is completely consistent with MAGA chuds who would view the "system" as a liberal system, who would view, for example, affirmative action as oppression ("Don't Call Me White").
The point has not been to say that these examples of punk rock make people bootlickers. Neither is it to deny that lots of punk rock is profoundly antifascist. Rather, it's to show that lots of punk rock is fully compatible with being rightwing.
I think the reasons for that are complex. One is that bootlickers don't regard themselves as licking boots; usually, they think that they ARE the boot. Another is to consider the things that punk rock has expressed anger about. While some of those things have been very reasonable things to rage against--war, corruption, injustice--an awful lot of punk seems to be white, suburban, teenage boys complaining that the mid-century American cultural and political package that Nixon promoted, that Reagan loved, the George W. Bush lived on, and that Trump promotes now (in some metastasized version) is a problem: but not because it's unjust. Rather, many seem angry that a privileged place in that arrangement was denied to them.
So, how does someone listen to punk and grow up to be a bootlicker? Pretty easily, I think.