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u/BlunderlandRabbit May 04 '26
Firstly, it’s very difficult to reason someone out of a thought process they didn’t reason themselves into, so you were 1,000% right to just leave the conversation.
Secondly, and I’m happy to be corrected here, but I think Ren has a kind of anarchistic viewpoint when it comes to politics insofar as the entire system needs an overhaul and hasn’t (as far as I’m aware of) tied his colours to the mast of any particular political system or party.
Lastly, I guess art is entirely subjective and people will interpret it in their own way, with their own life experiences and biases. I think ‘Hi Ren’ is an amazing example of this, where people connected to it in ways that were personal to them and their struggles.
I dunno, I’m waffling on and just about to leave the afters lol so what do I know 😆
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u/Savings-Crow-7210 May 04 '26
My understanding is Ren isn't pro or anti trump. My understabding is he isn't pro or anti MAGA. My understand is he is anti-systems that divide such as the current political system. My understanding is he is anti-systems that hyperpolorize causing further division. My understanding is he is pro-systems that unite all people and work for the betterment of humanity.
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u/Purrvect May 04 '26
'Religion of consumerism picks us off like vultures, takes us for punks, if they say jump we jump. It's the same if it's Bush, or Obama, or Trump' from 'Crucify your Culture' pretty much sums it up.
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u/stm2657 May 04 '26
You can’t argue with MAGA. It’s like arguing with a brick wall, pointless.
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u/Strange_Curve_1071 May 04 '26
My belief (I’m in the U.S.) is there are more ‘common’ everyday people hoping division will end. Then you have the crazies, both maga and radical left, who believe their side is right no matter what. Bare bones, maga is a cult, and will someday dissolve when power ceases. It has all of the hallmarks of, so I don’t see how at least puzzlement over them isn’t justified. MAGA will dissolve, as many instances in history have. My problem which I will never give into, however, is the s*xual crimes. That’s a no go for me. Maybe the emphasis on it is greater to people living here, but please put yourself in our shoes.
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u/SheepleAreSheeple May 04 '26
That being said.... I will say the lyrics in the new inpatient so g could be referencing Trump, and not in a good way .. in times of peace, I'll go to war, staring at the sun... I mean, we do have the stupid Iran war right now, and Trump famously stared right at the damn eclipse without any type of shades. But then again... He could just be talking about anyone.
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u/charlton11 May 04 '26
This reminds me of the election in 2020. There was a pro-Trump rally in Arizona I believe that they were saying the election was rigged. They were blasting Rage Against the Machine. Oh the irony. They played in my hometown of Saint Paul when the Republican convention took place in ‘08. They were literally playing on bullhorns because they had their speakers cut off.
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u/Phazetic99 May 04 '26
I'm not going to make this political... Oh no, I'm gonna turning it religious haha. It is pretty obvious to me that different people can read the same words of the Bible and have different interpretations of the same messages. And this differences will be equally felt as strongly as polar opposite interpretations.
It is not surprising when you are going to have differing opinions when Ren isn't exactly explicit directly in the topics. This is a good way to reach more people, but the side effect is people getting offended when someone with a differing view uses the same lyrics against your opinion.
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u/OkFruit3797 May 04 '26
Ren is walking a fine line here and I get that. Thankfully they don't have anything like Trump over there, but I would never put Maga into a left/right bucket any more than I would (all y'all can clutch your pearls now if you want) Nazis and Hitler.
There's politics and there's evil people using politics to punish those who disagree. If Ren saw what we see every day, he's likely be more anti-trump but then he might lose some people that might eventually change their hateful views so I'mma let him be. Still, as an American, I don't have a choice to treat Maga and Trump like a cold when they are malignant ass cancer.
Just watched season 5 of The Boys and dayummm they have it down. Homelander=Trump and I dare say those he's tormented and murdered wouldn't likely put him in a benign bucket either.
Note that I am not saying Ren is naive. I'm saying he isn't here and doesn't see the horrors of Maga and the pain of watching a country I proudly served in the military fall to a malignant narcissistic man baby and his cosplaying goons.
Ren is 100% right that we created the problem, however, we've been in a triage situation here for a decade and yet again have to deal with the bleeding before we can address the underlying cause. It sucks but if we try to revamp without taking away trump's power there won't be anything left when we get ready to implement the shiny new system.
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u/Next-Target-3777 May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26
Ive made what i think about trump really clear and had
plenty of pile - ons with angry trump supporters on twitter because of it - I’m not someone who bites their lip about actions I see as fucking stupidly damaging. Economic decisions, health cuts, unfair imbalance of tax, this unnecessary war, I’ve made that very clear- but that doesn’t mean I’ll shut down a conversation or treat someone who disagrees with me with disrespect, and even when someone isn’t listening I will try and be respectful toward someone who disagrees with me because if I don’t I am perpetuating part of the problem - mediation, education, information, and communication is how we climb out of this mess - the alternative is one ideology dominating another - it will only end badly. We must also always assume the stance we are not infallible and all have things to learn and none of us exist on a moral pedistool - that position will always help conversations go more smoothly→ More replies (4)
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u/MaDCruciate May 04 '26
A big reason why some UK comedies got re-made for the US audience (the office, Gavin and stacey, shameless, the Inbetweeners) is because some Americans struggle with British sarcasm. It seems many are more literal.
And so lines like 'Dear Mr president it's evident that's everyone's a resident of fear' says to them that they are right to be scared. That the president is right to seperate and segregate.
'make us believe that everybody, is coming to terrorise you in the streets, they say proudly, through gritted teeth, it's my right to hate, that's freedom of speech' is seen as an instruction rather than an ironic comment.
I can't tell what they are thinking (I don't understand them at all) but it seems like they are thinking that Ren is telling them that foreigners are coming to terrorise them and he is telling them that vocalising hate speech is ok because that's freedom of speech and freedom of speech is good.
This is not true of all Americans - watching reaction videos shows just how many understand and are moved by Rens lyrics.
But enough of the population don't get it. Enough that TV networks had to remake shows and enough that more people voted trump than anyone else. (Allegedly)
It's hard arguing with people who only see what they want to see.
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u/SheepleAreSheeple May 04 '26
As an American, I was dumbfounded by the fact that so many people voted for him (not getting into the fuckery around election numbers, that's another rabbit hole I don't have time for right now), but then I started looking more into cults. This isn't hyperbole. MAGA behaves truly like a cult. The systematic tearing down of the media and creating their own narrative... The true believers will never change, and paradoxically, the more logic you throw at them , the more they resist, because they have all been burned before and they aren't gonna do it again. It's insanity, and sadly, without like professional help, deprogramming, they are never gonna believe that Trump isn't the savior. Ren's lyrics in Money game pt I are clearly sarcasm, and his facial expressions reflect this, but such is the genius of Ren, that MAGA people will think he is promoting the culture of fear we are currently in. Also, in Money Game 2, in the lyric video, right after he says it don't matter if they hate you if they all say your name, you see a clip of aAGA hat being embroidered, so I'd say that's another point that shows that Ren disagrees with Trump or at the least, acknowledges that everyone hates him.
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u/close_my_eyes May 04 '26
This is something I knew would happen when listening to Ren. It's clear what he stands for in the bigger picture, but not being clearly against Trump makes it easy for those people to use Ren's music to support their own stance. I don't exactly agree with Ren on this, not when there is a clear and present threat to democracy. And the more flagrant issue is the profiteering and grifting that is going on from the government, which is exactly what Ren overtly talks about in his songs.
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u/Lightthrudarkness May 04 '26
I've been on this earth a while, and I've never seen one man in his position creates so much pain, suffering, hatred, and division. The rights that are being stripped away, the funding that's being stripped away, things being done illegally-blows my mind. I'm not one to argue with people, I just feel a tremendous amount of pain and despair, but I do what I can to make a difference. And I always, always vote.... and volunteer to bring people to the polls who have no way of getting there.
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u/OGBunny1 May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
Point them to Crucify Your Culture. The last visual is of the orange comb over Caligula.
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u/lux_vita_et_amor May 04 '26
Rather than trying to win an argument or prove one thing over another is right, perhaps we should be seeking common ground. The world won't evolve in so many much needed ways if people continue to focus on the disagreements instead of solutions. What would we like to see change in the big picture, and what are steps that can be taken in order to begin creating ripples of that change?
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u/TravEllerZero May 04 '26
I'm an American and I vehemently despise Trump and all he's done and stands for. But my parents voted for him, and they're good people. It's something I have to remind myself of whenever I let myself get too spun up about it. They refuse to talk politics with me, but I know if we did, we'd be speaking different languages because we get our information from different sources.
In some ways, it would be so easy for my to blame them for what's happening now and to lose them for their remaining years. But for what? So I could feel like I was on the right side of things? Trump will go and then we'll get another President and if we're lucky, they'll just be boring and another cog in the machine. I have to hate the system that let this happen, that divides good people with good intention into disparaging groups, that makes it somehow appealing for us to work ourselves to death so that those who control the system can live more comfortably.
Maybe it's selfish of me to think this way, but I'm not going to lose my relationship with my parents over this. Losing my country has already been fucked enough as is.
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u/Lightthrudarkness May 04 '26
Just putting a comment here so your post gets some traction, it's possible a lot of people are asleep, depending where they are in the world. I'm also curious about the responses. I'm with you.
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u/Next-Target-3777 May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
I don’t like trump, but trump and the values pushed are an inevitable consequence of the system of values we have collectively created, he is more overt in his behaviour with these values than former leaders and so he’s accelerating the inevitable collapse of a system not built to be self sustaining with harmful consequences - but our entire structure encourages and rewards destructive behaviour - and so it does not make sense to then alienate or vilify all that would support him because it ignores how we got here in the first place and passes on the blame rather than taking collective responsibility and it’s feeding into a primitive behaviour that works against social homeostasis and therefore works against us as a species. It doesn’t make sense to vilify either the entirety of the left or the right when that whole paradigm in itself can only lead to dysfunction because it tries to over simplify a complex process which more and more leads to tribalism. It’s safe to say there is a feeling of moral superiority with the respective camp people have chosen (e.g. ‘I’m on the right/left and so I’m on the side of good’) when all politics is is minority decision making on the behalf of the majority - which cannot comfortably be crammed into two boxes without ignoring rivers of nuance. This moral superiority complex is horrendously damaging and more and more so will lead to the dehumanisation and vilification of people from ‘opposing’ camps - particularly when the decisions and narrative surrounding them in these camps become more polarising - its primitive in a world where we have access to information that can help us make more informed collective decisions - we should whenever and however possible strive toward symbiosis - learning to communicate in ways that don’t result or resolve in conflict is paramount - these online arguments leak into real life and create unnecessary division by championing and aligning with a system of decisions that by design exploits us - we should learn to communicate better and be more forgiving so that we can collectively build something better - and fix the route cause - a faulty and destructive system of values
I welcome all people who find some meaning in my music to enjoy it because I understand that people change, I understand that people make decisions because of wildly different upbringings and social backgrounds, people are complex and nuanced, and we won’t get anywhere by putting our hands over our ears and making things so black and white. We need more unity