On election night my wife and I laid in bed with the TV on and our laptops open happily watching the results of the vote come in and eating junk food. When the stable odometer on the New York Times interactive widget went from pinning the left side with a 98% likelihood of Hillary Clinton winning to flipping abruptly to the extreme right (see what I did there?) for a 95% chance of a Trump win, we both figured something was wrong with the Times’ website. After reloading the page a few times, and seeing it remain in favor of Trump, it seemed that the television coverage was telling the same surreal story. We sat—like most Americans still possessing a majority of their teeth—silently numbed in a state of profoundly bewildered and demoralized shock. When it became obvious that fucking swine from all across the country had suddenly sprouted wings and taken flight—I got over 200 extremely nasty anti-Semitic tweets hurled at me immediately on Twitter (and I’m not even Jewish) from alt.right goofballs with Pepe the Frog avatars—my wife broke the silence saying simply:

“Dangerous Minds has to change. We need to be harder and tougher. Rougher-edged. We can’t blog about frivolous frou-frou things anymore. We have to switch up what we’re doing to reflect what just happened.”

I’d been more or less thinking the same thing, but my thoughts were amorphous whereas hers were much more sharply defined. Looking at Twitter, it seemed evident to me that within a matter of minutes a new American counterculture was spontaneously forming. As much as America had just gone full bore Idiocracy, in other quarters things seemed to be quickly getting very Mr. Robot. I offered some weak gallows humor saying that Trump might even ironically be good for a business proposition like Dangerous Minds, but she just groaned. (You’ll forgive me, I hope, but this is where my thoughts naturally drifted. Of course, unlike a lot of people, I also had the luxury of not having to worry about my undocumented abuela when America flunked its fucking IQ test…)

The next day, waking up with what felt like I had a toxic hangover of international proportions—I don’t drink—my wife who very seldom drinks herself, decided that she needed to be around people and joined several of her friends to commiserate at a bar that opened up at 9am. There was no way I wanted to be around strangers. Especially drunk people. Even worse weepy drunk liberal people…

Had fucking bullyboy Biff Tannen really beaten Tracy Flick?

I hated everything and everyone. I was glad to be alone.

After rolling an epic joint, I cranked up Smash the System, the fantastic new Luke Haines album, LOUD and listened to it all the way through and then again, and then again and then again on repeat. I don’t mean to imply that I rocked out, but fuck it, I rocked out. I’m not ashamed to say that. Pretty soon I felt, to my surprise, pretty okay. Like Haines was a revolutionary sonic sorcerer who had blown all the bad shit out of my brain. Smash the System was the perfect soundtrack for the day after Donald Trump was elected leader of the free world. I highly recommend it, maybe it’ll work for you, too.

I messaged Luke Haines on Twitter requesting an email interview and he kindly obliged me.

Richard Metzger: The obvious first question has got to be “Any thoughts on what happened last night?”

Luke Haines: So, the American Election. I may not be the right person to ask (who is?) as I believe in personal anarchy and magick. But here’s a few observations anyway:

The Brexit comparison isn’t entirely relevant. Brexit was actually a subtle bit of class war hijinks played out by a few members of the Bullingdon Club who bore long term grudges against one another. No one holds grudges better than the English Upper class—the Queen mother was said to have smiled with satisfaction very, very briefly at Wallis Simpson’s funeral. So, one of our ruling overloads lost out at a game of milky biscuit one night in the dorms at Eton, and the country got the brunt of it. Brexit was sold to the British public under false pretences—no one wanted to leave Europe (only Farage) The British public were sold the dummy, and they bought it hook line and sinker.

Trump is a businessman (not my tribe, if I had a tribe). He is also a sociopath (more understandable). He’ll try to “run” America like a business. Buying up shit, running shit into the ground, exploiting people—if he’s allowed to do this then he won’t lose interest in being El Prez. The best hope I guess, is that, he won’t be allowed to do that and he’ll lose interest…

Democracy only works when there is equality. Without equality democracy seems pretty broken.
 

 
Apparently Nigel Farage is said to be hopping on a plane to come over here to advise Trump! You guys can keep that asshole, we’ve got enough already. Was Smash the System a reaction to Brexit? Or not? It seems like you’ve been up for smashing the system for your entire career.

No. Not a reaction to Brexit. Although the album cover and video with the marauding Morris men was. The logical conclusion to the populist idea of Brexit would mean that no one in the UK would be allowed to leave their home town, or possibly the house where they were born. It’s “Autumn Almanac” by the Kinks as Modern Folk Politics.

Are you going through a bit of an Aleister Crowley phase?

Crowley was a bad man. I wouldn’t mess with the dark stuff—I might end up making a bad Stranglers album.

The unicursal hexagram on the CD packaging isn’t a nod to Crowley?

No, it’s based on the Kibbo Kift!

[I email Haines this Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicursal_hexagram]

First rule of Thelema: Never talk about Thelema.

More with Luke Haines after the jump…