The differences in political opinion between System of A Down frontman Serj Tankian and drummer John Dolmayan could not be more evident in recent weeks, as both have come out on different sides of the aisle on current hot button issues. But despite that, Serj wants everybody to know that he and Dolmayan are "allies."
Dolmayan has been making headlines for his political commentary lately, including his claim that Donald Trump is "the greatest friend to minorities." He came out against defunding the police and slammed Democrats as "the true bigots" who "can't handle free speech." Tankian for his part posted a cryptic message saying if you like or play in System of a Down and you like Trump, you're a hypocrite.
Dolmayan commented a few days later saying he hoped Serj was misunderstood when saying fans who support Trump are hypocrites.
Tankian put out a clarifying statement earlier today, making it clear that he and Dolmayan are still cool. The two are brother in laws, and Tankian says he loves and respects Dolmayan "irrespective of our extremely polarized political commentary and differences."
Tankian added that Dolyman "has always been my stalwart ally in efforts for recognition of the Armenian genocide within [System of A Down]."
Tankian then went on to discuss the reaction online to their commentary. "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 [System of A Down] what it is today. Thank you all for reading. We should all do more non-online reading."
