Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan was asked about the election of President Donald Trump in a recent Strombo Show interview, and if he was scared about it.
Keenan said, “Oh god, beyond. That’s terrifying. I don’t know if I really want to go into that. The bigotry, the racism, and the negavitiy, just everything about it, there’s a war coming. There’s a war coming, and it’s not going to be pretty.”
He also said, “It’s funny, because those very people in the [United] States that would marginalize Muslims around the world, and denounce them for their ‘archaic’ views, they’re demonstrating the same exact archaic views. The fundamentalist, crazy, extreme, just Salem witch trial mentality that we thought we were beyond. I guess that’s the message I’ve tried to explain to people in the past, is that we’re not beyond that. We’re the same people that did those awful things to each other, we’re not beyond that. Our genetic makeup is no different than it was thousands of years ago, there’s no difference, we’re still monsters, the trick is to keep your monster in check. There is no way out.”
Keenan also compared the President to Hitler in a 2016 interview The Skinny.
“Here’s the thing, I’m Italian and I’m Irish. The Italian side of me is the wine and food making family man; the Irish side is the shit-talking, ‘comedy first, always’ side. So I’m very divided. Because all the fuckin’ awesome jokes that are gonna come out if Trump leads the US – the humour, the tragedy and the awful stuff that’s gonna happen – is gonna be fodder for comedians for decades. And the end of the United States. Of course, the practical side of me thinks, ‘I’ve seen this before; I think it’s called Germany, 1938.’ Idiocracy is no longer a comedy, it’s a documentary. Idiocracy is where we are.”
Keenan also called failed Democrat Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton an ‘asshole’ last year, but said he thought if she won it’d be a step in the right direction because she’s a woman.
“Having a female President, if nothing else is just a step in the right direction, even though she might be an asshole, I don’t know, it might be what’s going to happen.”
