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A Bush Surprise: Fright-Wing Support
By WARREN ST. JOHN
Published: March 21, 2004
With his mohawk, ratty fatigues, assorted chains and his menagerie of tattoos — swallows on each shoulder, a nautical star on his back and the logo of the Bouncing Souls, a New York City punk band, on his right leg — 22-year-old Nick Rizzuto is the very picture of counterculture alienation. But it's when he talks politics that Mr. Rizzuto sounds like a real radical, for a punk anyway. Mr. Rizzuto is adamantly in favor of lowering taxes and for school vouchers, and against campaign finance laws; his favorite Supreme Court justice is Clarence Thomas; he plans to vote for President Bush in November; and he's hard-core into capitalism.
"Punks will tell me, `Punk and capitalism don't go together,' " Mr. Rizzuto said. "I don't understand where they're coming from. The biggest punk scenes are in capitalist countries like the U.S., Canada and Japan. I haven't heard of any new North Korean punk bands coming out. There's no scene in Iran."
Mr. Rizzuto is the founder of Conservative Punk, one of a handful of Web sites and blogs that have sprung up recently as evidence of a heretofore latent political entity: Republican punks. With names like GOPunk, Anti-Anti-Flag and Punkvoter Lies, the sites are a curious blend of Karl Rove and Johnny Rotten, preaching personal responsibility and reflexive patriotism with the in-your-face zeal of a mosh pit. When he's not banging his head to the Misfits, the Vandals or the Bouncing Souls, for example, Mr. Rizzuto spends his time writing essays denouncing Michael Moore and "left-wing propaganda," and urging other conservative punks to join his cause.
"Punk has been hijacked by an extreme left-wing element," Mr. Rizzuto said. "It's blame America first. Everything is America's fault, and everything is Bush's fault." Mr. Rizzuto said his goal "is rallying conservative punks and getting people to vote."
By their own admission, conservative punks constitute a small percentage of their particular subculture. Around 200 liberal and left-oriented punk bands have come together under the banner of Punkvoter, a coalition founded by Mike Burkett — a k a Fat Mike — of the band NOFX, with the stated goal of organizing punk fans to vote against President Bush in November. Mr. Burkett started Punkvoter with $100,000 of his own money and has recruited crossover bands like Green Day and the Foo Fighters to his cause.
"Our goal is to anger the youth of America, and to show them how the Bush administration is bad for them," Mr. Burkett said.
While Conservative Punk does not have a roster of bands exactly, it has inspired the interest and involvement of a consortium of conservatives with proper punk credentials, like Michale Graves, a former singer for the Misfits, who writes a column for Mr. Rizzuto's site. Mr. Graves regularly performs wearing a skull mask and is known for belting out lyrics like: "A fever rots/The brain goes numb inside/I feel a blackout coming/The boiled blister pops inside." He allows that he doesn't fit the profile of your average red-state Republican.
"I look like someone who should be hanging out with Marilyn Manson — in fact I have hung out with Marilyn Manson," Mr. Graves said. "It doesn't affect what my morals are."
"I think George Bush is a wonderful, competent leader," he added. "And I believe that he is bringing this country on a right and just course and he understands the true nature of evil."
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