System Of A Down singer Serj Tankian claims that his drummer and brother-in-law John Dolmayan has grown “tired” of Donald Trump, despite his passionate defence of the US president in the past.
Talking to Rolling Stone Italy, the frontman says that the drummer’s support of Trump should be referred to in the past tense, after Dolmayan got tired of the president for unspecified reasons.
“First of all, I don’t want to speak for John about his political views; that wouldn’t be fair. I can say that the verb ‘was’ [a Trump supporter] is correct,” says Tankian. “I can’t say for sure that it still is. I think he, too, got tired of Trump, like many others.”
He also reveals that Dolmayan is a former supporter of Democratic president Barack Obama. “I’ll tell you one thing: before Trump, John voted for Barack Obama. I don’t even know if he says it publicly, but it’s true. People change. I know so many Armenians in Los Angeles who voted for Trump and now regret it. That’s all I can say.”
The singer, who once called Dolmayan’s support of Trump “frustrating”, adds that even though their differing opinions have made their relationship “complicated” at times, they still love each other.
“But I’m certainly not the only person in the world who has a brother-in-law with different political views,” he explains. “It happens to a lot of people. Yet that doesn’t stop us from doing what we truly do: loving each other. We share so many things: our origins, our Armenian identity, our culture, our music, and everything we’ve built together over thirty years. And that carries a lot of weight. Yes, it’s difficult at times. But times change. Opinions change.”
In June 2020, following the Black Lives Matter protests in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, Dolmayan called Trump “the greatest friend to minorities”.
“The most attacked president in history yet the greatest friend to minorities!” the drummer wrote on social media. “Don’t believe it? Look at the stats. Don’t like it, doesn’t change the truth of it.”
The following month, Dolmayan claimed that Black Lives Matter “never had legitimacy” and was a “propaganda tool” of the Democratic Party. In 2022, he said that the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic “is and always has been about money”. He later claimed to have lost “hundreds of thousands of fans” due to his opinions.
Dolmayan is far from the only American to have seemingly turned his back on Trump. Last week, according to a CNN poll, the president’s approval rating slid to 34 percent. This matches his previous all-time low in January 2021, after he attempted to incite an insurrection and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The poll also found that only 28 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s actions in Iran. 25 percent said that the war has been worth it in terms of cost and American lives lost, whereas 74 percent said that the resultant rising fuel prices have caused them at least some hardship.
No stranger to making bold political statements himself, Tankian recently lambasted Israel for recognising the Armenian genocide of 1915, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government faces accusations of genocide for its ongoing military actions in the Gaza Strip. (Israel denies that it is committing genocide in the region.)
“The fact that this government is already committing genocide in Gaza and Lebanon decided to recognise the genocide of my grandparents is the worst fucking thing that they could have done to Armenians – by using our history, our genocide, our pain to their political advantage,” Tankian said. “Fuck you.”
System Of A Down completed a stadium tour of Europe in mid-July and are booked to play Sick New World Texas in October.
(LouderSound)
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