Jack Black has said he’s cancelled the rest of the Tenacious D world tour after his bandmate Kyle Gass sparked an outcry with a comment about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
The comedy rock group were on stage in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday when Gass was asked to make a wish after being presented with a cake for his 64th birthday.
He appeared to reply: “Don’t miss Trump next time.”
Gass also split with his agent following the incident.
JB’s response may be more of a concern for their safety than just an attempt to mitigate bad publicity. There are a lot more Trump supporters with guns than without.
Fearing for their safety on an Australian tour? No, if you read the article the response is all political and Australian politicians were calling for the band’s deportation.
Anyone standing behind Trump is a traitor insurrectionist flying the flag of a felon. The world will be a far better place without Trump, and anyone expediting that outcome has my respect as a patriot.
Populist are the true destroyers of civilizations.
A martyr Trump would be much much worse than a living one. Trump needs to be further discredited and the plutocracy as it exists today dismantled, otherwise things will either stay the same or get worse. Tall order, I know, but an assassinated Trump now would be terrible.
It’s probably more they don’t want crazy fucking trumpers taking shots at them. This is a safety issue a very real one. The band probably agrees with what he said but not enough to get killed over it. Which again is a very real possibility. These crazies almost got Trump with his security while Jack black walks around the venue of his shows alone before gigs.
What makes you think the outage is fake? If he doesn’t believe in political violence (doesn’t seem like that should be a controversial opinion even if you disagree), or at least believes in separating his private thoughts from his stage personality, I imagine the outrage is completely real. I’d imagine he very much did not want Kyle to implicate him by saying it in a very public venue with Jack on stage, even if he privately agrees.
I don’t know who he is in private but his public face is very much, “it’s all about the music, man!” and being innocuous. Being divisive can only hurt his popularity, and very much his bottom line as he and anyone thinking of casting him have to worry about boycotts and review bombs, to say nothing of targeted political violence against him and his fans.
Also, yes Trump and his followers espouse political violence. Do we want to normalize that? Really? That’s a scary thought to me because I don’t know how we put that genie back in the bottle. Right now it remains outrageous when the right does it, but if the left does as well then we can’t condemn it without hypocrisy. It’s just the new normal - we kill each other when we can’t get what we want through other means.
That thought very much frightens me because I don’t know how we all walk away from the precipice. I get Jack’s perspective and I’d be outraged about being put in the position of seeming to endorse that as well.
I guess bring on the downvotes if you must. I’ve got nothing to lose by speaking my mind.
Have fun not fighting back against fascists because defending against violence with violence would be “sinking ot their level”.
Read the “paradox of intolerance” if you have not, and wonder after you do who and for what purpose the ‘citizens should never ever resort to violence’ idea serves best. I upvoted you because i like when people speak their minds knowing they’ll be unpopular. I do disagree with you, but ive come to my new belief recently and don’t look down on those i feel are walking on the same path i walked
I’m aware of it. And I agree with it. It’s nuanced and hard to really get into without writing a book here. I hate Trump and I can’t even say I haven’t considered how much safer I’d feel if he died. That I haven’t at times impatiently wondered when the backlash against stochastic terrorism would inevitably rise up and answer violence with violence.
Hell if the assassin had gotten him, I think a lot more people would condemn the act from the safety of a post Trump world. But such things threaten to spill into open violence. And who can de-escalate if both sides are doing it? And without de-escalation, what is the end of violence? A horrific outcome no matter which side wins.
If we won, if we murdered and assassinated every white suprematist, every anti-abortionist, every homophobe and transphobe, every billionaire, who would we even be? And when would we stop?
I could go on at great length, but I’ll stop here. I appreciate respectful disagreement. I’m not anyone’s enemy here. I value the discussion and opinions I don’t share. I might not have spoken up but I didn’t see anyone else saying the things I felt needed to be said.
Anyway, salute brother (or however you identify). May we all come out on the other side of this thing together.
Serious question for anyone who believes political violence is never ok: at what point on the timeline do you think it was ok to respond to Hitler with violence?
1923 Beer Hall Putsch? SA violence in the early 30s? The Nazi party being sworn into power in 1933? Reischstag Fire? Night of the Long Knives?
Trump already has the support of a bought and paid for corrupt court, and we’ve already had Jan 6th. He’s promised to be dictator on day 1.
Is political violence truly never the answer?
Calls for order over justice is the hallmark of someone who never had to fight for their rights. It’s a position of privilege.
Something something letter from Birmingham Jail
Yup, exactly this. DARVO is the standard abusers’ playbook, and it also applies to oppression.
D is Deny/Downplay. “No, oppression doesn’t happen. And if it does, it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be.”
A is Attack. When they can’t deny it anymore, they’ll go on the offensive. Try to redirect the focus back to the victim. “Well what about…”
RVO is Reverse Victim and Offender. When outright attacking the victim doesn’t work, they move on to playing the victim. Make the real victim look bad, to garner sympathy. Pretend to be the helpless one in the situation, and say that the victim is attacking you for no reason.
When the oppressed fight back, the oppressors will act offended and use it to further victimize the oppressed.
The founders believed in political violence. That’s the point of the 2nd amendment.
That’s the point of the 2nd amendment.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
I think it’s pretty clear that the point of the 2nd amendment is “a well regulated Militia”.
What you’ve done is proposong a solution without clearly defining the problem. That makes your question sound appealing, it makes it sound rhetorical, but actually is meaningless without context.
Supposed the shooter had succeeded in his objective. One might imagine that Joe would win in November, maybe. But four years from now there would be a different candidate with just as bad views on those same issues, and the institutional problems that allowed Trump to gain power would still be in place.
Is gambling on 4 years of possible peace worth legitimatizing the policy of executing people whose political views you don’t like? That’s something you have to decide for yourself.
Many fundamental issues facing the country today go back decades. Pick your poison. Stacking the courts is an old strategy. Citizens United happened long ago. Redistricting and gerrymandering have been happening for decades if not centuries. All of those things matter, none of them were caused by Trump, and none of them would be fixed if Trump were gone. The systemic weaknesses can only be fixed by implementing systemic solutions, whatever those might be.
but actually is meaningless without context.
I don’t think I need a complete solution to be of the opinion that Hitler needed to be met with violence at some point. Of course we can’t know that Trump will be the same, but is there a possibility that his election in November leads to at least decades of Christofascist laws being enacted, if not a civil war? Perhaps by the time it becomes obvious that we’ve reached that point it’ll be too late.
Maybe Joe’s win this year will only put off the inevitable. But maybe it’ll lead to someone the next election with enough guts to give SCOTUS what they want and show them what a president with immunity can do, and the 6 who voted for making the president a king will end up in a black site until their more suitable replacements can be installed. At which point hopefully the corrupt ruling can be overturned by justices who aren’t being bribed. I don’t know shit about the law but I trust that if someone like Kagen says political assassinations are now legal, that’s further into fascism territory than I want our country to be.
You ask if gambling on 4 years of peace before something worse happens is worth it. I’d ask if gambling on a Trump election in November is something the US will survive. I guess we’ll see, because there’s no way in hell Biden’s doing anything illegal-- oh sorry, I meant any of the now legal things that Trump won’t hesitate to do when he’s “dictator day one”.
I sure hope we find out. I sure hope all of the candidates live well past election day. I hope that we have massive voter turnout and Trump is destroyed in a landslide election. Metaphorically. I don’t want him to get crushed with real rocks in a real landslide. Let him lose the election, retire from politics, get locked up for a while for his crimes, and live out the sad remainder of his life until he dies of old age. Given his general health now, it probably won’t be too long anyway.
Choosing to travel through time to kill a historical figure is easy because we know exactly what will happen if nothing is changed.
Killing a modern day figure is different because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. We can guess, but that’s it.
For example, at what point would it have been appropriate to assassinate Smedley Butler? 92 years ago today, it might have seemed like he was poised to become a dictator.
Yeah, good point. He was actually much more aligned with the goals of his assassin, Gavrilo Princip, than Princip knew. Princip thought he was doing something that would help the Bosnian / Serb cause, but instead he killed someone who might have given the Bosnians / Serbs more autonomy.
The thing is, I’m sure that there are cases where political killing actually makes things better. Obviously, it often makes things worse. But, it must be true that sometimes it makes things better. The problem is, that there’s no alternative history you can consult to prove it. You can just speculate about what might have happened if that person had not been killed.
For a random example, take Carlos Castillo Armas. He was put in power in Guatemala thanks to a CIA-backed coup. The US was involved partially because the democratically elected president was thought to be under the influence of Russia. But, more importantly, he was doing things that were hurting the bottom line of American fruit companies. When he took power, he started doing dictator things: rounding up and killing opposition, shooting protesters, revoking civil liberties, etc.
Then, 3 years after he took power, he was assassinated by a bodyguard.
What happened after that was probably not good for Guatemala. There were 36 years of civil war, and a lot of unrest. On the other hand what if Armas had been able to consolidate power? Would decades of dictatorship have been better or worse?
Also, killing an established, truly evil dictator almost never results in a happy democracy. But, that’s probably because the dictator has destroyed all checks and balances, wrecked every institution that a working society needs, and eliminated anybody who might be a threat. So, if a dictator is killed, the result is often chaos, or another dictator taking over. But, if you eliminate someone who might have become a dictator, who’s to say that they really would have become one?
Predicting the future is hard, predicting the past is easy.
Ever since this incident when U.S. politicians collectively argued that political violence was not okay, I have thought ‘I wonder how Fred Hampton would feel about these folks denouncing political violence?’ -I admit I don’t know the answer to this question, but when I consider the specific people going around vocally denouncing political violence, I’m not so convinced that those same people don’t protest too much.
Is political violence truly never the answer?
Personally, no. But, I’m a “no-first-strikes” pacifist. Violence harms the victim, the perpetrator, and those who witness it directly or indirectly. It can also cause great harm to efforts to affect political and social change.
However, I think that history does show that it has an important role, supposing its adherents follow strict ethical constraints and do not attempt to install themselves as bosses (something that is not terribly common in history). For non-violence to be truly effective, it needs to be clear and plausible that violence is the alternative. The Labor Movement had the likes of The Molly Maguires. The suffragettes had the likes of the WSPU. And the non-violent anvil of Dr. King had the hammer of Malcom X.
I get a lot of downvotes whenever I ask this and very rarely responded to, but if violence is the solution, why have you not started the violence, or at least started gathering people together?
I no longer live in the US, plus I’m fat, lazy, and have no idea how to organize people or start a revolution. If it were up to me I’d lose the war to fascists. But that doesn’t change the fact that someone should probably do something about fascists. And if violence isn’t the answer and you’re someone who’s similarly worried about fascism, why haven’t you gotten around to a getting started on a non-violent way to solve the problem?
I’m simply of the opinion that at some point along the way, talking nicely to Hitler wasn’t going to change anything. I’m just wondering where along that point in time people think that was.
I would think that if Trump was going to remove his own term limits so he could be President for Life and then start murdering his political rivals, it would have been in his first term when he had the House, Senate, and Supreme Court locked down. As it stands, he’s only going to be in power for another four years, worst-case scenario. It would take a constitutional amendment to change that (which is a big part of why he isn’t President for Life). I’m not going to sit here and say when it’s okay to start killing politicians, other than that we aren’t there yet.
I’d like to ask you a question as well: if Trump died, what do you think would have happened? Do you think that 100% of the gun-toting pro-Trump militias throughout the country would have laid down their arms and admitted defeat? Do you think that the political faction that is, on average, more likely to own and use guns than the left, would have said “well that sucks I guess”? Do you think that Democrats across the country would be safe? Or do you think it would be a Shot Heard Cross the Coasts that would have started a free-for-all of political violence that the country hasn’t seen in decades - perhaps centuries?
While I do think that the right of the people to govern themselves has certain implications I won’t get into here, it also means we have legislative options on the table. You have freedom of speech, which is why we can ask questions like yours and mine. We have the right to assemble, form parties, and elect officials. Let’s use those rights while the government hasn’t decided to destroy them yet; and if they ever do, let’s take the discussion to a more anonymous forum like on Tor or I2P.
Do you think that 100% of the gun-toting pro-Trump militias throughout the country would have laid down their arms and admitted defeat? Do you think that the political faction that is, on average, more likely to own and use guns than the left, would have said “well that sucks I guess”? Do you think that Democrats across the country would be safe? Or do you think it would be a Shot Heard Cross the Coasts that would have started a free-for-all of political violence that the country hasn’t seen in decades - perhaps centuries?
I don’t think either of those scenarios would happen. Maybe a civil war’s coming, but we’re not there yet. Or at least not quite yet.
As it stands, he’s only going to be in power for another four years, worst-case scenario.
I think worst case scenario outside literal king trump is project 2025 ensures enough gerrymandering and partisan hackery gets put in place such that dems never again see house and senate majorities or the presidency in our lifetimes, and then the freedoms that are the will of the vast majority like Roe continue to fall. Gay marriage will be next, guaranteed.
I’m not going to sit here and say when it’s okay to start killing politicians, other than that we aren’t there yet.
I don’t necessarily disagree with this, but like I mentioned in another comment, with a bribed SCOTUS giving the legal power to execute political rivals to the president (according to Kagen anyway), by the time the first dem pols are up against the wall it might already be too late. Which is why I asked where someone should’ve stepped in with Hitler-- I don’t know history well enough to draw enough parallels to make an educated guess, but things look a little bleak the way it’s going.
Political violence cuts both ways. I don’t think anyone thinks what happens to politicians go against the cartels in Mexico is good or healthy system. For democracy to work we can’t have people constantly fear for their lives. Sure Trump is a terrible human being but I don’t want my candidates living with the same fear. So our only choice is to condem it. Also when bad acting becomes the norm bad actors will thrive. If political assassinations becomes the norm do you think morally justified “good guys” assassin going after Hitlers are going to win/out pace organized crime like what we see in Mexico?
At the end of the day ends don’t justify the means. Violence breeds Violence. In this modern age if we want to create a peaceful society we have to do it peacefully. Violence might be an appealing means to an end and while we might have the moral high ground but they use the same logic to justify their violence.
It never the answer to advocate for it in a non-political venue where you’re part of a group that can associated with your comment without their consent. He torpedoed their careers as a band.
I hate Trump, but I don’t want him to be made a martyr and I’d be pissed off if I was Jack Black and this guy fucked up our public performances without my knowing about it first.
I really doubt he torpedoed their careers. The joke was no worse than lots of jokes Trump has made, such as about Nancy Pelosi’s husband. If the partnership ends, it’s because of Jack Black, not because of people clamoring for them to stop touring.
Repeating from another comment: It won’t be safe for them to perform in public, at least in the short term. They had to cancel this tour because the dude goaded literally crazy mother fuckers with guns. This isn’t like when the Dixie Chicks criticized Bush. This painted a target on their backs.
He torpedoed their careers as a band.
Did he though? I can’t imagine KG’s sentiment is an unusual one except among the MAGA cult and milquetoast centrists, and even then only the cultists could probably maintain a sustained boycott (although even then I don’t think things have been going too poorly for Bud Light lately).
I’m not sure I buy the trump as martyr either. No one has quite been able to replicate his “charm” among the faithful, so with him gone are centrists going to be more swayed? I’m not convinced.
It won’t be safe for them to perform in public, at least in the short term. They had to cancel this tour because the dude goaded literally crazy mother fuckers with guns. This isn’t like when the Dixie Chicks criticized Bush. This painted a target on their backs.
He said out loud what most progressives think and they’re known to be progressives so I don’t think their crowd cares, if anything they’ll get more famous
This is precisely the problem.
“Most progressives” do not think it works be OK to assassinate a political opponent, but that flippant “joke” makes it sound like a normal and reasonable position.
When is it okay if it’s against whichever politicians you like?
I don’t understand why people tend to forget that opinions vary. There literally cannot be a moment where everyone agrees someone can only be stopped by violence. Don’t worry though, sadly like 95% of Lemmy has been proud of this bloodlust the past few days. Your opinion is popular.
Clearly there are politicians that people like. Watch:
Fuck Joe Biden, he sucks and all politicians are scum including AOC and Bernie.
I guess trump is the only one allowed to make disrespectful comments about other people that almost die and it is just ok.
No, it’s not okay. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Criticizing the language Trump uses but then praising Kyle would be hypocrisy.
Who the FUCK is downvoting this
Dragging the whole US down into a landscape where political assassination is acceptable is exactly the right’s goal. As soon as it’s normalized even a little bit, that little tail which currently has a handful of right-wing nuts with pipe bombs and hammers who is actually acting on it is gonna grow to encompass a huge, MASSIVE number of Facebook uncles
And then I can guarantee that all the people who are celebrating this will no longer be celebrating
Good.
Politicians should be terrified of the monstrous political movement they’ve created and/or worked alongside.
If they didn’t want to fear for their lives, then they should have worked for the benefit of the people rather than the shareholders.
So you don’t think it’s ok for trump to make disrespectful comments about other people that almost die? Hmmmm
Bet you can’t explain to me how I’m wrong about his comment lol
Explain to me how he didnt imply that it’s not ok for trump to do it.
Or maybe you’re the one with terrible reading comprehension?
I don’t think the comment was appropriate but I also don’t think it was really necessary to cancel the tour over it. It was a joke made in poor taste. Worth an apology? Sure. But this seems like an overreaction.
The fact they cancelled the tour and that he split with his manager, makes me believe it wasn’t that harmonic anymore and it was the final straw.
If not, I agree it was a massive overreaction.
Inciting violence is not appropriate, but he could’ve easily just said he should’ve kept it to himself and move on.
Maybe he feels he can’t be a showman and be all fun when democracy is at stake.
It’s noteworthy that it doesn’t appear black canceled the tour just out of nowhere. I think they were getting pressure from the government based on what I’ve read.
Nah that was just one senator from a rogue far right party that likes to get attention by making ridiculous statements.
They do not represent the government and are not in a position to apply pressure.
Not like I understand Australian politics but one senator could be an influence.
Trump assassination attempt causes Tenacious D to break up was not on my 2024 bingo card.
And here we are with the unpredictable ridiculous shit happening purely because Trump is around again. I for one did not miss 2016-2020.
