“I’m serious”: When REM advocated the assassination of the president
US politics is going through a particularly worrying period as of late, as President Donald Trump and his gang of goons continue to systematically destroy the levers of democracy and victimise America’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens. Throughout this descent into fascism, however, many artists and musicians have protested some of the regressive policies of the Trump administration. Back in the 1980s, during the neo-liberalist nightmare of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, artists like REM were a little more aggressive in their criticism of the American government and political system.
The Republican domination of the 1980s was well reflected in America’s musical output. Particularly during the early part of the decade, punk and hardcore outfits like Dead Kennedys, Government Issue, and, of course, Reagan Youth were steadfast in calling out the regressive policies of the neoliberal administration and their detrimental effect on the working class, young people, and minority groups. At the same time that this punk protest against Reagan was going on, REM began to establish themselves as a new voice in alternative rock from their home base in Athens, Georgia.
It didn’t take REM very long to eclipse the early punk, post-punk, and new wave influences bestowed upon them by their early contemporaries in Athens. By 1988, the band were signed to a major label, Warner Bros, and found mainstream success with records like Document and Green. However, the band retained their punk political motivations throughout their time together; even commercial triumphs like ‘Orange Crush’ revolved around themes of the Vietnam War and America’s military-industrial complex.
So, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise when the band were openly critical of Ronald Reagan and his successor, George HW Bush. In fact, their hatred of the Republican Party and its voter base seemed to boil over in 1988, when Peter Buck appeared to advocate for the assassination of the newly elected George Bush. “I recommend anyone reading this who’s a psycho and can buy a gun to shoot George Bush,” he told Melody Maker.
Jet-lagged and admittedly tipsy, the guitarist didn’t pull any punches when discussing his intense hatred of the politician. “I’m serious. l would consider it myself,” he declared, explaining: “I live in a country that I hate! I live in a country where I wanna shoot politicians, where the only way you can make a real dent is not voting, it’s murder.”
While Buck’s take on the American political system, and how best to change it, was certainly misguided and most likely influenced by his sleep deprivation and intoxication, he did seem to harbour a genuine fury for the election of Bush in 1988.
“I’m so fucking furious, I feel like shooting people. George Bush first, and then the people who vote for him,” the guitarist continued in his tirade. Giving his analysis of the state of the United States at that time, he announced, “I hate this country, I really hate America. We’ve turned into such selfish bastards. If Adolf Hitler came back and said, ‘I won’t raise taxes’, he’d win in a landslide.”
Although Buck’s take on how best to deal with Bush’s administration and those who elected him were pretty extremist, by anyone’s standards, his point about the US electing politicians based almost solely on their position on taxes does still ring true decades later. After all, lowering taxes was a key campaign promise of Donald Trump. Now, less than six months into his tenure, we are now seeing minorities and political opponents black-bagged and disappeared by plain-clothes ICE agents across the United States, which is not at all dissimilar from the actions of the secret police back in 1930s Germany.
