With a constitutional amendment forbidding Ronald Reagan from seeking a third term in office, the 1988 US presidential election saw Republican Party nominees George H.W. Bush (the sitting Vice-President) and Dan Quayle facing off against Democratic Party challengers Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen. At the time, few political pundits were prerpared to give Dukakis a sliver of a chance of securing enough electoral votes to emerge as the 41st President of the United States, and the run-up to polling day was a dispiriting experience for liberal and left-leaning US citizens who knew that, realistically, the result was a foregone conclusion.
One American citizen who was particularly distressed about the prospect of George Bush becoming president was R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, as he made abundantly in a 1988 interview with UK music magazine Melody Maker.
“That asshole Bush is going to win,” Buck raged, “and I’m gonna be one of those old crazy guys who builds fences around his house and thinks that having weapons isn’t a bad idea because, with someone like Bush, who’s funded by the moral majority and is a criminal, I can’t imagine what’s gonna happen to us.”
“I hate this country, I really hate America,” the guitarist fumed. “We’ve turned into such selfish bastards. If Adolf Hitler came back and said, ‘I won’t raise taxes’, he’d win in a landslide. I’m washing my hands of it. I don’t give a shit. We’re essentially a nation of fat-assed used-car salesmen that wanna protect our pile. That’s all we are, and that disgusts me.”
In his rant to journalist Steve Sunderland, Buck also expression his opinion that Americans were “pigs”, and shared his belief that the only way to make a “real dent” in the political system “it is not voting, it’s murder”.
“I recommend anyone reading this who’s a psycho and can buy a gun to shoot George Bush,” the guitarist stated in his wildest declaration. “I’m serious. l would consider it myself.”
Buck doubled down on this outrageous statement elsewhere in the interview, stating that he was “fucking furious” about the state of America, and claiming, “I feel like shooting people – George Bush first and then the people who vote for him.”
It should perhaps be noted that Buck had consumed a number of alcoholic beverages before conducting said interview.
As it transpired, on election day, November 8, 1988, quite a lot of people voted for George Bush, enough to ensure that the Republican Party won a third successive landslide victory. According to the font of knowledge that is Wikipedia, neither Bush’s popular vote percentage (53.4%), his total electoral votes (426), nor his number of states won (40) have been surpassed in any subsequent presidential election.
Peter Buck, we assume, grudgingly accepted the will of the people, and chose not to embark upon any killing sprees, which was definitely wise.
