Make America Hate Again

Australian deathcore band Thy Art Is Murder recently released their latest album, Human Target. Shifting from their usual anti-religious and apocalyptic lyrical content, they touched on a few social issues throughout the album. Songs like “New Gods” touched on humanity’s narrative dependency through social media and “Chemical Christ,” easily the most important song on the album, discussed opioid addiction and the increasing role it’s playing in Western Civilization. Regardless of the importance of those two songs, the single that gained traction was “Make America Hate Again.” While I originally assumed it was just another Trump diss track, they had this to say:

“Whilst we collectively identify as a left leaning band, this song was not written to attack those who sit on the right side of the political sphere, but as a commentary on the tactics employed by both campaigns in the most recent US presidential election. These crusades of social warfare would surely succeed in one result regardless of the victor, making people hate one another.

The blood lust of the political spectator, armed with Fox, CNN and an iPhone, was satiated with aggressive slander filled debate and fake radicalized propaganda masquerading as news, where both sides of the field rallied to provoke. Identity politics spread like the wildfires of California, smoking out people of all creeds to be branded as red or blue.

Those on the regressive left may indeed have as much to answer for as their far right opponents for creating a heaving divide in the space of public discourse, and a sustaining sense of animosity among communities around America and abroad.

Polarizing leaders like Trump are, in part, a result of who we have become – disconnected.”

Andy Marsh

Normally, I don’t put stock in what foreign bands have to say about American politics because it’s none of their concern, but they came so close to the mark here that I was actually impressed. It’s not often that a left-leaning band views the bigger picture and addresses it as such; bands like Stray From The Path or Rage Against The Machine only attack the rightwing and no fair shake is given.

Political elections, in their rawest form, are nothing more than warring factions attempting to take and maintain control. The slanderous propaganda, hatred, and violence are nothing more than the result and natural progression of setting sides against one another in the power struggle. Every campaign slogan is a battlecry, every debate is a battle, every vote is a bullet.

While the rise of Far Right politics can be blamed on the hard pushes from Socialists and Marxists within the institutions, organizations such as Antifa and John Brown Gun Club are the result of a post-capitalist America. Both sides feel as if they’ve been left out in the cold by a country that was supposed to look out for them and the only option moving forward is dissent, widening the political divide to more extreme areas and giving way to more extreme tactics.

This trend of cutthroat politics will continue, and worsen, until separation or collapse happens; one side cannot coexist with the other. While the United States is made up of many different peoples, it is also made up of very different cultural regions with very different morals and ethics, some of which having been fighting for political dominance for centuries. Separation is the only way forward if we want to survive.