Republican Party

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The US Republican Party was a recurring target in many of Frank Zappa's songs and many interviews. He was very critical of the administrations of president Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. During the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan received supported from the Moral Majority and various televangelist leaders, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Robert Tilton, Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell and Jim Bakker, Zappa's criticism of the Republican Party grew stronger.

Frank Zappa opposed the PMRC: some of their members were Republicans: John C. Danforth, Slade Gorton, Paula Hawkins, Bob Kasten, Bob Packwood and Paul S. Trible Jr..

References to the Republican Party in Zappa songs

Quotes

"The spirit of adventurousness at any level of American society has been pretty much legislated away. In the eighties, with a repressive Republican, yuppie-oriented administration installed and ready to perpetuate itself with Supreme Court appointments that will keep us in trouble for the next half century, the prognosis is not good for things which differ from the viewpoint of the conservative right." - Frank Zappa, Winter In Amerika, interviewed by Steve Lyons and Batya Friedman, Option, January/February 1987.


"Words That Start with 'B' That Remind Me of What Republicans Do" The eighties can best be summed up by the TV image of red-white-and-blue party balloons, escaping into the atmosphere, the recurring Republican pictorial metaphor for -- what? Freedom? (And the Democrats, trying SO HARD to act like Republicans, occasionally adopted this same metaphor during the 1988 campaign.) When the Republicans really go at it, they "let off balloons." What the fuck is that? We see the bunting draped down here, and then: whoosh, the balloons go up. Who makes those balloons? Who blows them up? Who makes the bunting? Who makes out on these contracts? There's no question in my mind -- the beer, the balloons and the bunting all start with "B" for some Cosmic Reason. Bullshit also starts with a "B." If you took Beer, Balloons and Bunting, then stirred in the Bullshit, you'd wind up with a scientific description of how the Republican Party works its Special Magic on the American electorate. Oh -- let's add Bourbon, Blow Jobs and the Bohemian Grove." - Frank Zappa in The Real Frank Zappa Book.


"The idea is to run as a nonpartisan candidate and urge other people around the country to not only run but resign from the Democratic and the Republican parties because the Democrats stand for nothing except "I wish I was a Republican" and the Republicans stand for raw, unbridled evil and greed and ignorance smothered in balloons and ribbons. So that's really not much of a choice and it's nauseating to watch Democrats make speeches because they all wish they were Republicans." - Frank Zappa, Signs Of The Times - Frank Zappa, interviewed by Bob Guccione, Jr., Spin, July 1991.


"I think the whole idea of a conservative bent in the United States is a media fiction. There are two important media fictions that you have to see through in order to comprehend life in the United States. One of them is the constant drone of these guys, who are basically right-wing operatives, who go on television and complain about the liberal media bias. This simply doesn't exist, because all the media are owned by right-wing guys. There's no liberal media bias there. That's a straw man that has been constructed. When they constructed it, the idea was that, "Oh! If there's a liberal media bias, we must balance it by having more right-wing content in our programming"' thereby giving them the license to saturate and spin-doctor all the news that comes to you. I don't think that the sentiment of the population really is the way that television would convince you things are. The whole goal – especially in news broadcasting – is to convince anybody watching that all things connected with the Republican Party are good and all things not connected with the Republican Party are bad. That's the subtext of all of this. No matter what it is, if it's not of the Republican species, then it is bad." - Frank Zappa in The Mother Of All Interviews (Part 2), 1992.


"I was so irate at the carryings-on at the Republican convention," he said. "I thought that if I can do anything to make sure that George Bush doesn't get elected again – up to and including shaking hands with Tipper Gore – I'll do it. I mean, it's that bad ... I take back every bad thing I ever said about Clinton and Gore ... Whoever or whatever George Bush is, if you look at his friends, or his fellow travelers, I don't want to see those fellow travelers anywhere near Washington, D.C. Enough already with Pat Robertson and these guys!" - Frank Zappa in Frank Zappa, 1992-10-01, Frank Zappa, Los Angeles Times, 1 October 1992.


"There's been an incredible rise in racist and fascist attitudes here, most of them being helped along by the Republican Party. That Republican National Party Convention last summer was just unbelievable. Even the set decor looked like a Nuremberg rally. Hatemongers like Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson and the rest of the featured speakers were convinced they were going to win again. (...) "I have a large and devoted audience overseas, but a lot of people in this country don't know that I still exist. I think that might have something to do with the Republicans, who have never been too thrilled about my existence. I get the feeling that I've been blacklisted in this country," Zappa says. "My music doesn't get played on the radio here. And the only time I'm on TV is when someone wants to get a funny comment out of me for the news." - Frank Zappa, Pulse Interview, August 1993.

See also

External links

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