this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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I read this whole thread and still don't know what happened. I am familiar with some of Portugal the Man's stuff but I don't know Killing in the Name. Is the problem that Weird Al went right wing or that he parodied a song seriously instead of with humor?
It's a rage against the machine song that's extremely left wing and he didn't parody it. Weird Al straight up covered a famous song with lyrics including "some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses".
People are losing our shit because we knew he was progressive, but this is the equivalent of your local Methodist preacher saying that ICE raids are the system working as intended and why it must be destroyed.
I'm so glad I can still love Weird Al. Thanks for explaining.
"Killing in the Name" is a song originally by Rage Against the Machine. It's not about Weird Al going "right wing", the song is criticizing politicians and blind followers and is more left wing than right, and this isn't a parody - it's just Portugal The Man covering the song and Weird Al is also there to help cover it. It's a serious song.
Thank you for the summary. Much appreciated.
This is easily the most bizarre take on both Killing in The Name and Rage that I have ever heard. Let's, um, clean that up a little.
Rage Against the Machine are openly and explicitly socialist in their politics. There is nothing even slightly moderate about them. "More left wing than right" is a wild understatement.
Killing in The Name isn't some vague critique of, like, politicians and stuff, it's a song that is explicitly about the shockingly large intersection between white racism and police officers.
The main hooks are the lines "Some of those who work forces are the same that burn crosses" and "For those who died are justified, for wearing the badge they're the chosen whites."
The song and bad are both infamous for being popular with alt right, MAGA and libertarian types, but that infamy comes entirely from the fact that it's so insane that these people are listening to music that so thoroughly disagrees with them. A bunch of MAGA screaming "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" says nothing about Rage's politics and everything about their extreme lack of media literacy.
(This is not to say that Tom Morello / Rage agree with left wing consensus on everything; they were pretty openly against vaccine mandates, for example. But their overall political position very much sits on the far left)
100% agree with you on this, and would go a step further to say, a bunch of MAGA screaming, "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me," illustrates exactly how fucking devoid they are of any form of critical thinking.
This actually makes a bizarre sense to me, well actually not sense but I guess I'm not surprised. In his first term, many Trump supporters said they would either vote for him or Bernie Sanders. I was like WTF? So I interpreted this as people not wanting a "normal politician." Hilary was a normal politician so big surprise she lost (also she was unlikeable).
I think many other MAGA (and right wingers)are so stupid, they don't know when they are being trolled. I heard a lot of people thought Stephen Colbert was serious instead of parodying. And strangely I saw a guy do an informal poll at, I think it was a state fair or something, and many self identifying right wingers and left wingers actually agreed on a lot of the problems (rich people running the world, affordability crisis, privacy issues, etc.) They just didn't agree on which side had the solution. Personally I can see where someone might be duped at the beginning or just superficially, like maybe they just don't watch the news much and catch a snippet of what a friend it family member says and going with right wing conservatives. But how anyone who takes the slightest interest can't immediately see issues is beyond me.
https://youtu.be/dxk3c_SbWMg
Leftist political protest song
Thanks.
A lot of right-wingers like it because it sounds angry and they don't listen to the lyrics. I've seen right-wingers literally believe that Rage Against The Machine is raging against the Biden administration.
I mean, Leftist DO detest Liberals/Democrats
I mean, they were. Or, at the time the song was written, the Clinton administration. But they were raging at them for being too far right.
LOL. Well that's MAGA for you.
That song came out in the 90s right? Several decades before the Biden administration.
Yeah but conservatives are notoriously stupid.
Yeah I can imagine the brainless military fucks going for this when they’re on a murder road trip to rape a country of its oil and children. Again.
They're more raging against Clinton's administration. That and the four to the floor disco beat.