SEPULTURA frontman Derrick Green spoke to Self Umpunishment about the rise of Trumpism in the U.S. and why the perceived bigotry and aggressive chauvinism of America's 45th president has found such a large audience in this country. "The public at large, especially in the U.S., because of so many years of a horrible education system failing, going down, and no money put into that," Derrick said (see video below). "And for teachers — proper payment for teachers and everything — I've just watched it sink dramatically. And that, I believe, has a lot to do with where we're at now — lack of education, and many other things that go along with that. "I wasn't that surprised when Trump won [in 2016]. I was really, like, 'Oh, yeah. It seems like that's the way things are gonna go.'" According to Green, Trump's refusal to tell America the truth about the pandemic in a bid to save his political skin was one of the factors that ultimately contributed to his loss against Democrat Joe Biden. "There's a lot of mistakes that really led to his own demise," Derrick said. "It really was all him. There are a lot of people around him that were just, like, 'What are you doing?' They really were on top of things. They had the Senate, they had a large amount of people voting consistently — they had a very strong group for a while. But he just continued to drive it into the ground, it seemed, where it's just, like, enough is enough. Nobody knowing really what's gonna happen day to day — even his own party. You've gotta feel that they have had enough too. They didn't realize that he would be such a cult figure, which is really outrageous. I think there was maybe a backlash from [former president Barack] Obama being so powerful. They were, like, 'We need our figure. We need our person.' It just ended up in shambles, and it's still continuing on." Derrick also decried the fact that a president who is widely viewed as a racist can still command so many votes, after also playing down a pandemic that has killed at least 234,000 Americans. But Derrick clarified that he doesn't hold a personal grudge against anyone that voted for Trump. "I'm not angry at Trump supporters by any means, and I don't think all Trump supporters are racist," he said. "It pisses me off when people say that. I'm, like, stop adding fuel to the fire that's totally unnecessary." SEPULTURA's latest album, "Quadra", was made available in February via Nuclear Blast Records. The band comprises Green, guitarist Andreas Kisser, bassist Paulo Xisto Pinto Jr., and drummer Eloy Casagrande. "Quadra" is the follow-up to 2017's "Machine Messiah", which was SEPULTURA's fourteenth studio album and the eighth since Green joined the ranks.
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