Horizon

Eh, Vincent Gallo's a Republican too, so what? Lot of people are Republicans for the same reason a lot of people are Democrats and Greens: they don't know any better, it's an emotional decision based on how their grandparents voted or on vague ideas like self-reliance. I mean, come on, there are even gay Republicans for cripes sake.

What is it about the Ramones that would make this an inexplicable discovery? That they were punk? So what?

Actually, I was kind of hoping someone would explain the general "conservative punk" phenomenon. I'm fascinated and puzzled by the way some people seem driven by their most rebellious impulses to support parties representing order, authority, inequality, hierarchy, and tradition. To me it's a weird case of iconoclasts tending and venerating icons, but to actual conservative punks it seems to feel perfectly natural and that's what I'm hoping someone will please explain.

I mean, Ronald Reagan's own taste in music IIRC ran to Lawrence Welk. He wouldn't have had Johnny Ramone's recordings in his house let alone shaken hands with the man himself. So what did Johnny Ramone get out of venerating a man who would never have returned the favor?

I don't find this particularly mysterious myself. You could argue, for example, that much of the Confederate nostalgia movement is a kind of backwoods punk. When people fly the Stars and Bars from their trucks it's not usually because they feel an urgent need to memorialize the Battle of Shiloh; they're doing it because they know it annoys the more liberally minded, and because it's a way of saying 'fuck you' to the world. If that isn't punk then what is?

There's a long tradition of both hard right and hard left in the punk scene, if I'm not mistaken.

People rebel against what they know. Someone who grows up in SF with hippie parents and gets stuck working at a natural food store, uh, well what are they going to do if they are the rebelious type? They will find themselves inexplicably drawn to business suits and SUVs with American flag stickers that say "These colors don't run". I've seen it happen (in a less extreme form) many times. It's especially prevalent among white males who are quick to sense that they have become politically suspect in some people's eyes merely by dint of their race and gender, which violates their sense of fair play. They come to associate this kind of bigotry with the left in general, and before you know it another Horowitz is born.

Whether it's a simple desire not to conform or an adverse reaction to a pervasive culture, there's no special reason people would only go one way, I think.