These past few weeks have seen System of a Down members Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan espouse political takes from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum.
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests that unfurled internationally in the early weeks of June, both members have been outspoken about the current leader of the U.S., President Donald Trump. While Tankian has called for Trump, and his regime, to resign, Dolmayan has taken a fonder approach towards the president, noting (in his opinion) that Trump is “the greatest friend to minorities.”
Continuing on, Dolmayan has called the current movement to defund the police “idiotic” and has stated “you can’t handle free speech because you are cowards.”
Comments that may, or may not have prompted Serj Tankian to share that if you’re a fan of System of a Down and “love Trump, you’re a hypocrite — just a simple fact.”
Tankian has now taken to Instagram to share that “the amount of online hate and stupidity” he and John Dolmayan are subjected to is “unjustifiable.”
“My drummer and brother in law @johndolmayan_ whom I love and respect irrespective of our extremely polarized political commentary and differences has always been my stalwart ally in efforts for recognition of the Armenian genocide within Soad,” Tankian wrote.
“The amount of online hate and stupidity against him and I are unjustifiable: social media has created an erroneous digital society that partially thrives on this reality.
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“Remember irrespective of the stance, only artists that truly care and are impassioned will risk alienating their base for what they consider the truth. Our dilemma and possible fallacy is that we have two in one band. Some may consider that a weakness but the artistic, political and social dichotomy if not quadrichotomy (not a word) has made @systemofadown what it is today.
“Thank you all for reading. We should all do more non-online reading :)”
Let’s just hope that this display of diplomacy leads to a System of a Down studio session, and we’ll finally be blessed with new music.
Check out ‘Spiders’ by System of a Down:
