System Of A Down singer Serj Tankian has posted that “the amount of online hate and stupidity” he and his bandmate John Dolmayan are subjected to over their outspoken views on politics is “unjustifiable.”
Tankian wrote on Instagram in defense of Dolmayan, the band's drummer and Tankian's brother-in-law, while acknowledging that they have extremely different political views. Dolmayan is a fierce supporter of Donald Trump while Tankian would like to see the former reality TV host out of the White House.
Tankian took to his Instagram to write, “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.”
He added, “The amount of online hate and stupidity against him and I are unjustifiable . . . only artists that truly care and are impassioned will risk alienating their base for what they consider the truth.”
Tankian told us a while back that it was the Armenian genocide — the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkey's Ottoman Empire during World War One, which was later covered up by Turkey — which inspired him to become a social and political activist. “I thought to myself, wait a minute, if this is a truth that I know is a truth, that I've read about is a truth, and I've confirmed is a truth, that is not fully, openly recognized here, then how many other truths are there? How many other injustices are there that need to be addressed? And it opened my eyes to a lot of things.”
Earlier in the month, Tankian called for Trump to resign and described him as “completely useless” over his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Tankian's views are in sharp contrast to those of Dolmayan, who has praised Trump in recent weeks.