{"id":163866,"date":"2025-12-02T06:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T06:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/163866\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T06:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T06:09:07","slug":"it-sucks-to-be-called-a-donald-trump-supporter-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/163866\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It sucks to be called a Donald Trump supporter\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

On January 6th, 2021, American democracy gazed into the abyss as Donald Trump<\/a> supporters descended on Washington, DC<\/a>, like a horde of orcs in a fantasy movie. It was also the day that changed the life of the cult indie musician John Maus, after he was wrongly labelled a Trump fanboy \u2013 a misunderstanding that might well have destroyed his career.<\/p>\n

The songwriter and composer was in the city when the outgoing US president\u2019s Maga minions smashed their way into the Capitol building in a dystopian attempt to overturn the results of the election. But Maus had not gone to Washington to riot. He had tagged along with the film-maker Alex Lee Moyer, who was there to gather footage of Alex Jones, the right-wing conspiracy theorist, for a documentary about incel culture. <\/p>\n

Maus says he had no idea violence was about to break out and that he and his wife, the Hungarian artist Kika Karadi, left before trouble began. \u201cFrom my perspective it was, \u2018Oh, look at the chuds waving the flags, climbing the walls.\u2019\u201d It was only when they got back to their hotel that they found out people had been shot, Maus explains.<\/p>\n

Some of his fans couldn\u2019t understand why he\u2019d been in the city that day. \u201cIs John Maus going right-wing?\u201d one wondered on Reddit. \u201cIt\u2019s very disturbing to me that [Maus] is passionate about such a terrible thing,\u201d another wrote. <\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help that he was also in the company of Ariel Pink, a fellow underground musician, who had spoken in favour of Trump, and would later appear on Fox News to complain to the conservative host Tucker Carlson<\/a> that he had been cancelled and was \u201ca recording artist who can\u2019t record\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018I want to respond to every comment and go, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not for Trump.\u201d But I figure it won\u2019t do any good. So I don\u2019t\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0John Maus<\/p>\n

When Maus tried to set the record straight, he arguably made the situation worse by posting an unintelligible papal encyclical from 1937 in which Pius XI condemned nazism. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe you shouldn\u2019t care if somebody calls you a fascist if you know you\u2019re not one. The ironic thing is that the people calling you that are embodying it more than you yourself are,\u201d Maus says from Antwerp, where he\u2019s in the middle of a European tour that includes two imminent Dublin dates. \u201cIt actually sucks. I want to respond to every comment and go, \u2018No, I\u2019m not for Trump.\u2019 But I figure it won\u2019t do any good. So I don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September Maus released Later Than You Think, his excellent fifth album. Mixing brooding synthscapes and dolorous vocals suggestive of a cyberpunk Ian Curtis<\/a>, it\u2019s a catchy, accessible pop record. It\u2019s also grippingly bleak \u2013 and hardly supportive of Trumpian politics.<\/p>\n

On the LP\u2019s opening track, Because We Built It, Maus makes the grim prediction that the political and cultural norms we\u2019ve known since the end of the second World War are coming to an end. Later, on I Hate Antichrist, which features recordings of FBI agents kicking down a door in the manner of Trump\u2019s Ice<\/a> goons, Maus suggests the dark forces that will undo decades of progress are already among us.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we\u2019ve got to be nearing the end of this postwar configuration we\u2019ve been in for 60 years, 70 years,\u201d he says. \u201cWhether it\u2019s the tech feudalists, like Peter Thiel <\/a>and Elon Musk<\/a> and those guys, that roll in some new configuration that\u2019s an intensification of what we have already, or whether it\u2019s a third World War or something, we\u2019re probably on the verge of a reconfiguration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Maus: As one review put it, he ‘pogos, head-bangs, and gives vent to a succession of feral howls as he jack-knifes at the waist.’ Photograph: Paul Maffi <\/p>\n

Will rock and pop survive this reboot? Probably not. \u201cThis music that we\u2019ve been making for the last 70 years, I tend to think of it as one music, from Little Richard<\/a> and Chuck Berry<\/a> to what I\u2019m doing today,\u201d Maus says. \u201cIt\u2019s a particular music that\u2019s part and parcel with this configuration of power and this situation. And I think when that passes away, so the music will too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raised in a small town in Minnesota, Maus studied music composition at California Institute of the Arts, where he developed an interest in medieval and Renaissance music. He also played in bands with Ariel Pink, whom he met at college.<\/p>\n

He would later go on to teach political philosophy at the University of Hawaii, writing songs at night. After quietly self-releasing his music, he became a cult figure in 2011 with his third album, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, the title of which originated with one of his professors, the French philosopher Alain Badiou. <\/p>\n

The LP was a turning point, gaining Maus widespread recognition.<\/p>\n

He remains interested in philosophy, and has a tendency to discuss both music and politics in elevated, slightly abstract terms. He\u2019s too cheery to be pretentious, but talking to him can feel like sitting through a tutorial on a subject you haven\u2019t studied sufficiently. <\/p>\n

When it comes to the January 6th riots, he makes clear that he doesn\u2019t see the Democratic Party<\/a> as a panacea for the United States\u2019 problems. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhere I was coming from was outside parliamentarianism altogether. The post-Marxist French and Italians that I cut my teeth on regarded all that as a spectacle, as a choice between good cop, bad cop.\u201d <\/p>\n

When it comes to the Democrats and Republicans<\/a> of American politics, he says, \u201cOne of them bombs Gaza and is very sad about it. The other one does the same and makes shit-eating memes about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have liberal friends, and they say, \u2018Come on, be an adult. Plug your nose and go vote blue\u201d \u2013 which is to say Democratic \u2013 \u201cno matter who.\u201d <\/p>\n

They\u2019re right to an extent, Maus says. <\/p>\n

\u2018If a populist right ascends, then there are billionaires that can get behind that. But billionaires aren\u2019t going to have any reason to get behind a populist left \u2013 a legitimate one\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0John Maus on US politics<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are real consequences on the ground\u201d to voting for Trump. \u201cBut, again, even with respect to the undocumented people,\u201d the Democrats \u201care still doing the deportations. There\u2019s not a legitimate populist radical left in that apparatus at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maus\u2019s attempt to move on from January 6th was not helped, he acknowledges, by the revelations that he had donated to the Trump campaign. He says he did so out of frustration at the Democratic Party\u2019s sabotage, as he saw it, of Bernie Sanders<\/a>\u2019s run for president.<\/p>\n

\u201cI donated to Bernie. And the Dems, it was the second time they shafted him.\u201d (Sanders ran for the Democratic nomination in 2016 and 2020.)<\/p>\n

Maus wonders whether the election of the socialist Zohran Mamdani<\/a> as mayor of New York will prompt the Democratic Party to move to the left. He isn\u2019t holding out hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like again they are not taking the cue. That\u2019s always going to be the case in the United States. They\u2019ll never let a populist left ascend. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf a populist right ascends, then there are billionaires that can get behind that. But billionaires aren\u2019t going to have any reason to get behind a populist left \u2013 a legitimate one. And you have to have billionaires involved in order to break through in American institutional politics. It\u2019s unlikely that\u2019ll be allowed to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OnOn the subject of the pro-Trump January 6th riots, John Maus makes clear that he doesn\u2019t see the Democratic Party as a panacea for the United States\u2019 problems. Photograph: Paul Maffi <\/p>\n

For the full John Maus experience, you have to see him in concert. A one-man dervish with floppy, sweaty hair and a crazed look, he never stands still and seems possessed by his songs. <\/p>\n

On one level he\u2019s commenting on the nature of performance: look at how ridiculous he is, dancing like a deranged Duracell Bunny. On another he\u2019s just a dude freaking in full public view. As one review put it, he \u201cpogos, head-bangs, and gives vent to a succession of feral howls as he jack-knifes at the waist\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what I came up with,\u201d Maus says. \u201cWhen I was a teenager, with punk rock, you were supposed to give a show \u2013 go to the limit. It\u2019s not choreographed. It\u2019s not a spectacle in that sense. It\u2019s more a human being at their breaking point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve riffed on this whole idea of a hysterical body \u2013 these nonsense syllables, an assault on meaning. It looks ridiculous and comical and absurd. It\u2019s antagonistic to the whole regime of \u2018consume and enjoy\u2019. It is irreconcilable with that. That\u2019s what I\u2019m hoping to accomplish.\u201d <\/p>\n

John Maus plays Button Factory<\/a>, Dublin, on Saturday, December 6th, and Sunday, December 7th <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On January 6th, 2021, American democracy gazed into the abyss as Donald Trump supporters descended on Washington, DC,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[107404,48244,19077,65,516,156,107402,107403,157,111,139,69,88911,20960,24249,15758,49483],"class_list":{"0":"post-163866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bernie-sanders","9":"tag-chuck-berry","10":"tag-democratic-party","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-elon-musk","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ice-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","15":"tag-little-richard","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-peter-thiel","21":"tag-republican-party","22":"tag-tucker-carlson","23":"tag-washington-dc","24":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}