Henry Rollins Slams Donald Trump, Calls Hillary Clinton a ‘Keep-Everything-From-Blowing-Up Kind of President’
The 2016 presidential election has come down to Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Throughout the year, few musicians have endorsed either side as a viable candidate and now hardcore punk legend and social commentator Henry Rollins has weighed in with his thoughts
In an interview with David Devo Oosthuizen in Cape Town, Africa last month (video below), Rollins shared his opinion on both candidates, slamming Trump while admitting Clinton would keep things at the "status quo." First, he cited the "conscientious dumbing down of an electorate for at least 40-something years" (transcription via Blabbermouth) that began with the Reagan administration and has continued through the present. He said the "less intellectually curious America" either "fears the world" or "thinks he or she is the world, not a part of it."
The former Black Flag frontman went on to detail problems in education, how "smart people make better decisions" and that he didn't realize how racist the country was until Barack Obama was elected President. Riffing on the theme of race, Rollins added, "And in comes Donald Trump, who speaks in bumper-sticker logic: 'We're gonna build a wall and Mexicans will pay for it. Immigration solved.' 'What about this?' 'I'll put my best people on it.' He talks tough about China, he talks tough about these countries. Saudi Arabia… You don't shove these countries around if you're America. Saudi Arabia owns so much American debt, which they can sell, which they can destabilize America with a few pen strokes. To talk tough to them… China has a bunch of American debt. You just don't slam the phone down and laugh with these people, with these countries, with these massive economic forces. But people like what they hear."
Flipping to the Clinton side of things, Rollins admitted she "is not my favorite person in the world," but conceded that "she would actually make a very good president in that she's super boring, she knows leadership, she's been around it, as a senator, as a secretary of state and as a first lady." Having been in the system for over 30 years, he said, "I think she would make a very good status quo, keep-everything-from-blowing-up kind of president, maybe even beyond that a really, really good one. 'Cause I don't think she's a bad person; I just think she's kind of a political operative who just wants her day in the sun, like, 'Damn it! I've waited my turn. I will now be president.' But I do think she's actually motivated, where Donald Trump, I think, was running for fun and it got ahead of him."
Rollins has been vocal about other political issues this year, condemning the North Carolina HB2 law that states people must use the bathroom that coincides with the gender specified on their birth certificate rather than the gender they identify as. In an article he penned for LA Weekly, Rollins said, "I want North Carolina to reap an LGBT whirlwind. More shows, more light, more heat, more volume — just more. We Americans are such a bunch. You give us a topic, any topic, and we’ll divide over it. I am impatient and don’t want the past for the future.”
Henry Rollins Interview in Cape Town, Africa
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