https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s1YDyZCW5Q
Punk rock is not a style of music. Or a philosophy. Or a political ideology. Or a style of fashion.
Punk rock is a spirit.
A spirit that goes off road and carves its own path in accordance with the dictates of its authentic promptings.
A spirit that embraces the self-directed rugged ethos of DIY to crash through the gates long-held by outdated keepers.
And I believe its the same spirit that rejected the stale Republican/Democrat duopolized presidential candidates offered up in 2016 and drove a pitchfork into the establishment with the election of Donald J. Trump.
Trump may very well be our first punk rock president – a sentiment it seems Johnny Rotten may echo, having labeled Trump “a political Sex Pistol” who “terrifies politicians.”
As former VICE co-founder, ex-punk rocker and CRTV host Gavin McGinnes proclaimed on his show “Get Off My Lawn,” “The new right is the new punk rock.”
I couldn’t agree more.
And here is my list for the Top 10 Punk Rock Heroes of the New Right:
1. MILO YOUNOPOLIS – Love him or hate him, the new right’s most pronounced provocateur refuses to go away. Banned from Twitter. Fired from Breitbert. Book deals canceled. Events protested. Milo faces every wall by placing a bouncy trampoline in front of it. He pushes forward, continuing to speak his mind, staging book events and publishing not only his own book, but also those of other outlawed figures on the right, like Pamela Geller.
2. GLENN BECK – From his risky never-Trump stance, to being mocked endlessly for sounding alarm bells on the now-obvious caliphate ambitions of radical Islam, Glenn Beck has never accepted the easy path. Instead, he has always followed his internal spirit voice, critics and consequences be damned. His career has long been punctuated with bold, unorthodox moves. Beck was one of the first to break into the online subscription-based TV network model with TheBlazeTV. He dared to have author Joel Richardson on his 5 p.m. Fox News show to expose the parallels between Islam’s messiah and Christianity’s anti-Christ – opening himself up to all kinds of risk. He aligned his network with outside-the-box thinkers on the right like Dana Loesch, Andrew Wilcox and Tomi Lahren – paving the way for more voices to emerge within the disparate chorus of the new right. I doubt Glenn could name a Rancid tune, and he’s not one to associate himself with the Trump zeitgeist, but he’s punk rock nonetheless.
3. ROBERT (NOT Richard) SPENCER – It’s been said that Robert Spencer knows the Quran better than most Muslims. And for this, he’s been repeatedly maligned, attacked and even physically poisoned for exposing what is naturally and logically gleamed from studying Islam’s holy book. No matter how careful he is to distinguish between the inherent hegemonic malevolence of Shariah law, as required by the Quran, and the independent free will of Muslims that choose not to embrace Shariah, Robert Spencer is inevitably branded as a consummate Islamophobe. Spencer takes the hits and keeps charging forward, no matter how widely he is maligned, by spreading penetrative truths daily on his website Jihad Watch.
4. PETER THIEL – One of the original members of the PayPal mafia, Peter Thiel does not fit the pre-fab tech titan profile. His attributed ideological associations may seem contradictory to the casual eye – gay, evangelical Christian, anti-war libertarian, Silicon Valley billionaire, Trump adviser. But its near impossible to walk away from hearing an interview with Peter Thiel without a sense that he is a man who knows who he is, is fully comfortable in his skin and is confidant in the complicated congruence of his unique belief set. Nothing more punk than that.
5. KID ROCK – You can’t put your finger on him, and you can’t shut him up. While Hollywood and entertainment pushes their vocal minority far-left views with impunity, Kid Rock connects with and speaks to hicks in the heartland. While his music only shows traces of punk styles, his attitude is replete with punk rock rejections of the music industry’s cookie-cutter leftist expectations. His U.S. Senate run may have been a prank, but his music and outspoken support of Trump and blue-collar tinged patriotism ain’t no joke.
6. GAVIN McGINNES – Witty, audacious and smarter than the average punk, the Godfather of Hipsterdom, Gavin McGinnes, embodies the true spirit of DIY punk rock individualism. Whether its mocking the doublespeak of pop culture, fighting the oxymoronic fascist bullies of antifa or promoting the virtues of fatherhood and entrepreneurialism, Gavin McGinnes expresses his conservatism while retaining the inherent punk rock ethos he grew up with.
7. PAMELA GELLER – She’s maintained sharp arguments with pit-bull like tenacity no matter what attempts are made to keep her off her game. She’s detailed the real dangers of radical Islam and leftist Islamophiles with an unwavering, mission-driven ambition. She’s pushed forward despite Facebook censorship, rampant slander by the media elite and an assassination plot on her life. Pamela Geller is so punk rock.
8. DANA LOESCH – A long-time rocker and fellow fan of The Cult, Dana Loesch has clearly built her conservative commentator career with a punk rock edge. This edge has only gotten sharper as she continues to forge her own style with a substance full of intellectual breadth and sarcastic width. As a spokesperson for the NRA, she’s honed her courage and sharpened her resolve – not backing down on her convictions even after being driven out of her home by gross malicious threats. On air, in exile, or online, Dana Loesch won’t back down. Dana is punk rock weaponized for liberty.
9. SABO – Never mind the Democrats, here are the Deplorables. And chief among them, propagating the boldest of defiant street art, is L.A.’s Sabo. Through his provocative art found at his website Unsavory Agents, he is appropriately re-purposing punk rock artistic satire to poke hard at liberal hypocrisy, elitism and corruption and lift up the true rebels of limited government.
10. ANDREW WILKOW – One of the OG’s of connecting the dots between punk rock individualism and small-government conservative thought, Wilkow briefly ran the now defunct website conservativepunk.com while growing his listening audience with his Willow Majority on Sirius XMs Patriot channel. Andrew Wilkow knows what it means to define your principles and articulate them day in and day out with authenticity. And he’s a huge fan of Social Distortion to boot.
