System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian and drummer John Dolmayan have very different political views, with Tankian as a vocal supporter of progressive causes and Domayan as an outspoken conservative. Their views on Donald Trump are even more polarized with Tankian calling for the president’s resignation, while Dolmayan claimed he was the “greatest friend to minorities.”

Dolmayan made a post on Instagram, which reaffirmed his political beliefs and explained his mutual respect for Tankian, despite their polarized views. Tankian now seems to echo this sentiment, and states that while their views are polarized, he respects Dolmayan and called him an ally for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, sharing a picture of themselves at a rally in support of this cause.

 

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My drummer and brother in law @johndolmayan_ whom I love and respect irrespective of our extremely polarized political commentary and differences has always been my stalwart ally in efforts for recognition of the Armenian genocide within Soad. The amount of online hate and stupidity against him and I are unjustifiable: social media has created an erroneous digital society that partially thrives on this reality. Remember irrespective of the stance, only artists that truly care and are impassioned will risk alienating their base for what they consider the truth. Our dilemma and possible fallacy is that we have two in one band. Some may consider that a weakness but the artistic, political and social dichotomy if not quadrichotomy (not a word) has made @systemofadown what it is today. Thank you all for reading. We should all do more non-online reading 🙂

A post shared by Serj Tankian (@serjtankian) on Jun 23, 2020 at 1:47pm PDT

All of the founding members of System of a Down are Armenian-Americans and vocal proponents of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey. While many historians recognize the event, it is still not recognized in the United States at the federal level, with the Trump administration rejecting a senate resolution recognizing the atrocity.

During this post Tankian also condemned the hate launched at himself and Dolmayan, before ending his statement with a call to read more non-online books. He also promoted a Guardian article documenting the artists in the metal scene who have been vocal in their support for Black Lives Matter, which Dolmayan found critical of his opinions.

 

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Much respect to @guardian, one of the most respected journalistic news sources from the UK. Link in my profile

A post shared by Serj Tankian (@serjtankian) on Jun 23, 2020 at 12:26am PDT

“The amount of online hate and stupidity against him and I are unjustifiable: social media has created an erroneous digital society that partially thrives on this reality,” Tankian wrote. “Remember irrespective of the stance, only artists that truly care and are impassioned will risk alienating their base for what they consider the truth.”

This event comes after Dolmayan’s recent comments calling democrats “bigots” and promoting factually incorrect abortion claims regarding Black women. In the post he criticized the aforementioned Guardian piece and a Metal Sucks article critiquing his abortion claims and his beliefs in free speech.

“Anyone who perpetuates this kind of baseless attack is as blind to justice as they are void of character,” Dolmayan claimed. “These kinds of fascist tactics are indicative of the establishment machines attempt at silencing free speech and condemning diversity of thought whenever possible. It’s no surprise that the dangerous, billionaire funded, extreme left along with their puppet mouthpieces in the media and entertainment industry resort to personal attacks and attempt to dehumanize those they deem a threat to their ‘revolution.'”

 

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Anyone who perpetuates this kind of baseless attack is as blind to justice as they are void of character. These kinds of fascist tactics are indicative of the establishment machines attempt at silencing free speech and condemning diversity of thought whenever possible .it’s no surprise that the dangerous , billionaire funded ,extreme left along with their puppet mouthpieces in the media and entertainment industry resort to personal attacks and attempt to dehumanize those they deem a threat to their “revolution “. These people will go to any lengths to destroy any narrative not in line with theirs and when they don’t have a substantive argument or factual backing data they simply insult the opposition and condemn them irrespective of truth. It worked splendidly for Obama who spent most of his presidential campaigns insulting the character of his political opponents who made no attempt to use similar tactics and lost because of it. Trump simply looked to them for the winning method and took it to a new high ( or low). This is not what we should be about , these are not the heroes we should respect , and I will not be scared into silence by people who think they have a moral high ground but who in actuality are morally bankrupt.

A post shared by John Dolmayan (@johndolmayan_) on Jun 23, 2020 at 9:43am PDT

Photo Credit: Mauricio Alvarado