- cross-posted to:
- popularculture@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- popularculture@hexbear.net
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/9710405
a couple snippets from the interview. the first snippet is about Tom Morelloa doing some concert to promote voting in the midterms. the second snippet is him saying that he didn’t vote for Kamala because of her complicity in Gaza genocide, he doesn’t use the word genocide.
bold is interviewer, non-bold in tom
Is there an argument that people’s focus on Ed Sheeran is indeed a distraction from what they should be focusing on?
Yeah, 100 percent. It’s all right to shame him in this moment because he deserves the shame, but not the focus. The focus is your and my tax dollars are going to commit horrific war crimes in the Middle East, and that, I believe, should be the focus and what we should be doing our best to stop in its tracks.
It’s a clickbait, it’s salacious, it’s, “Oh my gosh, poor Ed Sheeran.” First of all, has Ed Sheeran never seen a Macklemore performance before in the last three years? He certainly should’ve known what he was getting into.
The one thing that’s sort of adjacent is, this is a time where speech is being vilified and is a crime, where the truth is a crime, where skin color is a crime, where immigrant status is a crime, where gender is a crime, where sexual orientation is a crime. And it’s my belief that the true crime is the rise of authoritarianism, and the true crime is the erosion of freedoms, and the true crime is an impending environmental disaster. And so my hope at each one of my shows, I deputize the audience as anti-fascist crime fighters, and that’s really the way that I think you have to look at the world right now. Like, what are the real crimes that are happening, and what is it that you and I can do to stop it?
Now that I’ve gotten you fired up — your Power to the People Festival. What is its most essential purpose?
It is not PR or hyperbole to say it is a festival of peace, love, justice, and music. In a time where war is celebrated, this is a festival of peace. In a time where hatred and division are rife, this is a festival of love. In a time where injustice is the norm, this is a festival celebrating fighting for justice. In a time where there’s a lot of shitty music, there’s gonna be a lot of great music on this stage, so we’re going for four for four.
How much were the midterms on your mind when you scheduled this?
As my dear departed mom, Mary Morello, who passed away at 102 years old, was a very political person, said, “You’ve got to fight the fascists every which way you can.” One of those ways is at the ballot box. It’s not the only way, and you should not just think that because you’ve done that. Voting is a piece on the chessboard, and that you try to create an environment where in between the voting you can fight for a more just, a more peaceful, a more equal world.
And so, is the festival three weeks before the midterms? Yeah. Does the money from the festival go to voting rights organizations? Yeah, it does, but the festival is about something much bigger than that. It’s about what kind of world do you really wanna live in, and should we fight for that world, or should we settle for the one that’s being spoon-fed for us by the oligarchs?
Returning as promised to the electoralism issue — there are some on the left who tend to argue it doesn’t matter, don’t bother voting, both sides are the same. So what would you say to someone on the left who says, “Listen, man, I listen to Rage Against the Machine, and I know everyone’s the same. It’s about tearing down the power structure. Doesn’t matter who you vote for. I’m not voting”?
On the one hand, I think that rebellion is self-care, in a way, but I answered that already. Mary Morello was 100 percent right. You have to stop the fascists every which way you can. First of all, a lot of people who I greatly respect and admire the sacrifice they’ve made to try to get people with my color skin to be able to vote in this country, and have died, been lynched for it, they’ve been shot in the back for it, and it’s very disrespectful to their memory to do that.
But that in and of itself is not going to change the levers of power in a significant way. It’s not. It’s not. You should do it. But it would be like, okay, great, you vote, and on the next day you start working. You start working harder for the world you really want without compromise and without apology. And not just putting in the hands of whatever corporate Democrat you choke down your vote for in that particular election, that it’s your job to make the world the way that you think it could be to help those that are the most in need and to hold those accountable who are most guilty.
Do you feel that people on the left should have voted for Kamala Harris?
I’m crystal clear that people’s conscience cannot allow them to do something that they fundamentally believe is wrong. I was the scheduling secretary for United States Senator Alan Cranston. I saw how the corporate Democrat sausage is made. It is worse than you think. And there is a reason, there is a righteous fury at the corporate controlled, money controlled electoral system we have that is absolutely legitimate, and people cannot choke down — I understand it — voting for a candidate that’s responsible for what happened in Gaza, and they just can’t do it, and I’m not gonna blame them for that.
But I think that putting it on them is the most cowardly thing. Put it on the fucking Democratic Party. First of all, I don’t believe it’s their responsibility and they’re never gonna necessarily never do the right thing, but I think it’s all of our responsibility to co-create the world that we want and not point fingers at people that were just like, “Well, you know, my conscience didn’t allow me to do that, so it’s your fault.” I will not co-sign that.
Did you vote for Kamala?
I certainly did not.
You did not?
Did not. I couldn’t do it.
I didn’t realize that.
V for Vendetta — that one inch of who you are belongs to you, and they can’t have it. Now, I live in a state where it may not have moved the meter, but I just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it.
When’s the last time that you didn’t vote for the Democratic candidate?
Can’t remember the last time I did.
Wow, okay. I thought you were softening a little bit.
Can’t remember the last time I did.
Trump waffled on abortion, in multiple instances, with little reaction. Some figures like Mike Pence tried to oppose him, and they have precisely nothing to show for it.
He’s been more consistent with gun control. But Trump waffled a little in that area, too, with virtually no drop in polling: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/31/2nd-amendment-advocates-issue-dire-warning-over-trumps-pretti-gun-remarks-00758740
It’s just about hierarchy. If you watch Republican political language, they talk about loyalty, belief, “I stand with Trump.” Things like that. Showing loyalty is more important than the actual issues.
It’s a mirror of evangelical Christianity, in a way.
But with Dems, there is zero loyalty. That’s what I meant by “drop candidates at the drop of a hat.” Dem voters don’t care about showing loyalty; the issue takes priority.
“Waffled on” but didn’t actually oppose. The Democrats haven’t just “waffled on” Israel, they have fully supported them, materially, including Biden bypassing congress to send them more weapons. They’ve even changed the legal definitions to recognize antizionism as inherently antisemitic, to try to brand us all as racists. They’ve even made it illegal for us to boycott Israeli goods.
Trump may have “waffled on” certain issues, but at the end of the day he still supported them. Anecdotally, my fervently anti-choice mother was skeptical of Trump, but will point out that he appointed justices that overturned Roe v. Wade, so she doesn’t care. Because that’s her red line, and the party knows better than to try to cross it, and she knows that the party won’t cross it, so she can tolerate some rhetorical waffling, because she knows she can trust them to follow through on the issue once in office. They’ve been respecting her red line on the issue for generations at this point, it’d take more than a bit of rhetorical “waffling” to make her doubt their commitment.
By contrast, the Democratic party never respects the left’s red lines. In fact, even when they say they do, they don’t follow through. Nowadays, they’ve stopped even pretending that they will.
You treat “loyalty” and “the issues” separately, but loyalty is earned by following through on the issues. The Democrats haven’t followed through on the issues the left cares about, so there’s no loyalty. The Republicans have followed through on the issue the right cares about, so there is loyalty. Simple as.
Hey, how about you read what the other writes?
I think you’re misunderstanding. Their point is that the right is loyal to Trump solely because he’s at the top of the hierarchy, and what I’m saying is that it’s not just that, but that on the issues that they really care about, he respects their red lines.
If Trump actually ran on being pro-choice or explicitly in favor of gun control, and still somehow got the Republican nomination, you would likely see a significant number of Republicans voting Libertarian, or there would be some other third-party challenger. The Democrats would likely win that election, and afterwards the Republican party would learn their lesson and treat those stances as electoral suicide, because the right would have disciplined them.
Being at the top of the hierarchy gives a lot of leeway in what you do in your personal life, in terms of scandals and the like, but if you actively start dismantling the hierarchy or turning against the right’s core values, you’ll be replaced. The reason Trump is at the top of the hierarchy is not because of birth (he used to be a democrat) or wealth (Bill Gates is wealthy and they hate him) but because he says what they want to hear and they see him as an effective vehicle to advance their ideological agendas.
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