True. Although I think that doesn’t mean he wasn’t an asshole, either. He always seemed like a difficult person to work with. He and McLaren famously clashed all the time and he’s had some conflict with the other band members recently about that bio-pic series.
But his moral compass is what makes his backing of Brexit and Trump all the more confusing. Like, can you not see just how bad Brexit is going to be and how much of it was driven by pure xenophobia, John? Or what a shitty human being Trump is?
One can have a strong moral compass (one that points in the right direction, even), and also be just wrong.
I could posit that maybe he thought that leaving the EU was the right thing to do despite all the racist bullshit, or that he thought that Trump was being a performative edgelord but would actually do some good, but that would be me putting words in his mouth. I also couldn’t see how that would last thirty seconds of exposure to the facts.
While I am, of course, disappointed in his current politics, the one time I met him he was a very good person. During a series of on air phone calls at the station I was working at in 85 he was the one who hit the “bleep” button when a caller tried to swear on air, and he made sure that all of the interns got on the list for the re:Search “Crash” event that PIL was playing. Way better guest than most.
