I Don't Like Jesus Freaks/ I Don't Like Circus Geeks

The great GOP consultant David All, inaugurating his new project TechRepublican:

[A]s a Republican, I'm proud to have John Cummings in our Party. You may know John as Johnny Ramone, of one of the best bands of all time, the Ramones. The Ramones are largely regarded as being the first punk rock band and they happen to be Republicans. In fact, Johnny Ramone was quoted in 2004 as saying, "I send money to the [Republican National Committee] and to Bush/Cheney. I will argue politics with people all day long. I am one of the few Republicans out here."

As Atrios pointed out—and he was not alone among the blogosphere's many rakish wits—Johnny Ramone died in 2004. He died about a week after the Republican National Convention, actually. This outdated Johnny quote evokes two things—the decline of political rock and the even-steeper decline of the Republican brand.

Hard to remember now, but four, five, six years ago it was reasonable to believe that conservatism and the GOP would have some kind of claim on youth culture. This was one way of explaining the paucity of anti-war rock in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, but it was more useful as a way of explaining polls showing the GOP, George W. Bush, and ideas like Social Security privatization soaring with young voters. One of my first Reason articles tackled a book by Danny Goldberg (the rock promoter who later took on Air America Radio) that creaked with bitterness about how his rock star friends were excited about defeating the right but, damn it, why weren't those young folks?

Long story short, the conservative movement pissed this all away with the Iraq War and the GOP's hard right tack on social issues (think FMA). John Tierney explained it all in his column from Reason's Amsterdam conference. If you want more evidence, check out the GOPunk website and notice that it consists of a definition of the term and a link to that most hardcore of punk acts, the Right Brothers.