Why didn\u2019t anyone tell me that Ted Nugent is a YouTuber now? America\u2019s least favorite uncle is a webshow host these days, using what little guitar talent he has to shoehorn embarrassing politics into his Spirit Campfire series online. He\u2019s taking a page out of the playbooks of Ben Shapiro, the Nelk Boys, and Steven Crowder by getting on his knees for extremist weirdos and force-feeding the same anti-immigrant, anti-trans, and anti-Democrat drivel to his followers in every video\u2014and now he\u2019s even dragging much-better musicians into his soup of panicky white nationalist hokum. <\/p>\n
Nugent, a long-time gun-toting conservative whacko, doesn\u2019t like Jack White<\/a>\u2019s political views\u2014obviously\u2014but he sure did like White\u2019s halftime performance at the Detroit Lions game on Thanksgiving Day. Good on him for separating the art from the artist, I guess. \u201cThe guy in the White Stripes\u2014I can\u2019t think of his name, but he played the halftime show with Eminem for the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving. A big deal,\u201d Nugent said in a video<\/a> titled \u201cLet\u2019s Talk Music\u201d on New Year\u2019s Day. \u201cDon\u2019t they always lose? The Lions are a football team in Detroit, by the way.\u201d (I\u2019d like to interject here quickly and mention how chuffed I am that Nugent, who was born in Michigan, felt like he needed to explain the Detroit Lions to his fanbase.) <\/p>\n \u201cJack White, is that his name? Jack White. No, I think the White Stripes\u2014is that his name?\u201d Nugent continued, stammering. \u201cAnyhow, he was great. It wasn\u2019t, like, a ten like Sammy Hagar or James Brown. I think Sammy Hagar and James Brown and Steven Tyler, those are tens. Angus Young of AC\/DC, that\u2019s a ten. The guy\u2019s a maniac. Billy Gibbons in the rhythm and blues, soul music category\u2026 he\u2019s a ten.\u201d <\/p>\n Look, I\u2019ve listened to Ted Nugent\u2019s music before. My father was a high schooler in a mid-1970s rural Midwestern town. Weekend Warriors was on a time or two. But this isn\u2019t Chuck Berry or Pete Townshend we\u2019re talking about. Of course the guy who pissed his pants over and over for a week on purpose just to avoid getting drafted would compare Sammy Hagar to James Brown. \u201cStranglehold\u201d isn\u2019t a good enough song to warrant such delusion; not even Hagar himself would buy into this crock of shit. <\/p>\n \u201cNow, is that his name, Jack White?\u201d Nugent asked again in the video, because he is clearly recovering from a stroke or dealing with some kind of aphasia. \u201cJack White, he\u2019s not a ten. He\u2019s a four and a five, but he really delivered real rock and roll. Real Detroit piss and vinegar.\u201d Unfortunately, Uncle Ted has never made anything as good as Elephant, White Blood Cells, or even White\u2019s recent solo record, No Name<\/a>, but boy, does he hate what the bastions of his beloved Detroit, Michigan, have become. \u201cAnd Eminem, the guy\u2019s a\u2026 Both of those guys, Eminem and Jack White: total idiots.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t want their country to have secure borders. They think men should destroy women\u2019s sports,\u201d he continued, before momentarily developing a sense of self-awareness that he would go on to ignore entirely. \u201cWell, that\u2019s not\u2026 That\u2019s exactly what they stand for. When you hate Donald Trump, you want men in women\u2019s sports to destroy women\u2019s rights. That\u2019s what these guys stand for. They don\u2019t think our border should be secured. They think we should invite jihadists in who announce they want to kill the infidels. They announce they want to kill Americans. And Jack White and Eminem say, \u2018Yeah, bring them in. Bring those guys in.\u2019 Freak idiots.\u201d Later in the video, Nugent claims that he \u201cdoesn\u2019t stand for hunches\u201d yet he\u2019s got a few about White and Eminem. He\u2019s mastered the art of right-wing MadLibs. Transgender this, border wall that. It\u2019s exhausting to keep up with, quite frankly, because guys like this don\u2019t even know what or who they\u2019re mad at anymore. <\/p>\n Sure, Jack White and Eminem have been loudly anti-Trump<\/a>, with White in the news recently for his crushing ridicule<\/a> of the president\u2019s recent comments about the death of filmmaker Rob Reiner, but those two Detroiters weren\u2019t the only musicians caught in Nugent\u2019s bootlicking crosshairs. Green Day and Tom Morello got ragged on, too\u2014odd, considering that Morello has talked at length about his friendship with Nugent, telling The Guardian<\/a> that \u201cTed Nugent\u2019s a good friend to me\u201d in 2017. \u201cWe have very similar views on freedom of speech, His libertarian edge and my anarchist edge overlap considerably. Sometimes, if he says something outrageous that will fire up his racist base, I\u2019ll text him to say, \u2018Dude. What are you on about?\u2019 We\u2019re able to talk about it as friends as opposed to people on the opposite sides of the barricade.\u201d Clearly Nugent feels differently all these years later.<\/p>\n \u201cTom Morello, Is that his name? Tom Morel? Morello, who played with Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine, when actually they are the machine,\u201d Nugent said, showcasing yet another sign of early onset dementia. \u201cCome on Tom, you got to know that. You\u2019re not raging against the machine. You are the machine. They don\u2019t believe that America should have secure borders, which means they don\u2019t believe in America. Which means they want to have a great successful life in America, but they don\u2019t think you should be able to have one. Hey, Tom! Come on my show. Explain\u2026 make your case. Good luck.\u201d After his diatribes against White, Eminem, and Morello, Nugent gave Green Day a swipe just for good measure. \u201cTheir music is soulful,\u201d he said. \u201cJust like Green Day. Green Day, there\u2019s not a brain amongst them, I don\u2019t think. But man can they play really, really killer stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s no surprise to me that Nugent thinks good rock and roll is getting made by brainless guys. He\u2019s been doing that dance himself for 50 years; it\u2019s all he knows. What is surprising is his fascination with Yungblud, an Englishman who\u2019s more stylish than he is musically talented. Ted Nugent doesn\u2019t know dick about either of those qualities, to be fair, but I guess the Aerosmith rub really did something for Yungblud this time. \u201cLimey freak madness,\u201d Nugent called him, ostensibly as a compliment. \u201cThis guy\u2019s the Real McCoy. Watch this Yungblud that\u2019s working with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. It gives you hope that the real piss and vinegar\u2014the James Brown, the original Chuck Berry, Little Richard\u2014is alive and well in this kid called Yungblud.\u201d I can excuse pretending to not remember Jack White or Tom Morello\u2019s names, but I draw the line at putting Chuck Berry or Little Richard in the same sentence as Yungblud. <\/p>\n None of this is shocking. Ted Nugent\u2019s spineless views are marginally more relevant than his god-awful rock and roll in 2026, but he\u2019s made his opinions known for decades. He is pro-gun and anti-animal rights, pro-Confederacy and anti-vax. He said \u201call men are not created equal\u201d when the apartheid ended in South Africa and called Black Lives Matter a \u201cterrorist organization\u201d; he thinks global warming is bullshit and defends mountaintop removal mining; he thinks Islam is a \u201cvoodoo religion,\u201d called COVID-19 the \u201cChinese shit,\u201d and dubbed the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivors \u201cmushy brained children\u201d who \u201chave no soul.\u201d He even got investigated by the Secret Service for his comments against Barack Obama (\u201cIf Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year\u201d) in 2012. Of course the guy who wrote \u201cWang Dang Sweet Poontang\u201d is grifting on YouTube, posing as this patriot fighting for freedom and truth, logic, and common sense. But what he really does is sit in his garage, ensconced in amplifiers, camo print, and crossbow arrows, regurgitating the same bile that right-wing loons have been choking down for ages. There is no truth, logic, or common sense in the church of Ted Nugent. Racist dogma is the language of the few, the proud, and the gun-toting, and it\u2019s got a stranglehold on him. Let\u2019s get you back to bed, Ted. Those bags under your eyes are looking mighty heavy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why didn\u2019t anyone tell me that Ted Nugent is a YouTuber now? 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