Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello Doesn't Get Why Paul Ryan Likes His Music

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Mitt Romney’s new running mate Paul Ryan might be a fan of Rage Against The Machine, but not surprisingly, the band’s outspoken guitar player Tom Morello doesn’t share the love. The well-educated activist took fingers to keyboard yesterday to condemn the policies of the politician he considers a “extreme fringe right wing nut job”, and not surprisingly, his words have set off a lively debate about whether one needs to be on board with a musician’s politics to properly appreciate his or her music.

The op-ed was published in Rolling Stone, and it reads like a vicious middle finger. It accuses Ryan of displaying a rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against gays and a rage against the poor. Here’s how it concludes…

” My hope is that maybe Paul Ryan is a mole. Maybe Rage did plant some sensible ideas in this extreme fringe right wing nut job. Maybe if elected, he'll pardon Leonard Peltier. Maybe he'll throw U.S. military support behind the Zapatistas. Maybe he'll fill Guantanamo Bay with the corporate criminals that are funding his campaign – and then torture them with Rage music 24/7. That's one possibility. But I'm not betting on it.”

It might be funny to think about Congressman Ryan rocking out to such an aggressively liberal band, but he’s far from the only one who seems to tune out Rage’s politics. I saw the group a few years back at Lollapalooza. Lead singer Zack de la Rocha asked for cities to be burned as a means to overthrow the government, and at least ninety percent of the audience cheered. I can guarantee ninety percent of the crowd didn’t really want to see Chicago burn to the ground.

I would be shocked if Congressman Ryan responds, but if he does, we'll bring it to you.

Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.