Billy Corgan Goes After Bernie Sanders And ‘Social Justice Warriors’

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan had a lot to say about Bernie Sanders and what he calls “social justice warriors” in a recent interview.

Billy Corgan On Sanders & ‘SJWs’

Corgan weighed in on the state of the 2016 presidential election while a guest on a radio show hosted by Alex Jones, a known conspiracy theorist. In a veiled attack on Democratic presidential candidate Sanders, Corgan decried the talk of socialism in the race to the White House as well as tax rate proposals.

“I can’t believe that we’re even having this discussion, if you can understand when I say that to you humbly. To be talking in America in 2016 about Mao is a good idea, and a socialist is running for president and that’s ok,” Corgan said. “And we’re going to go back to these kind of crazy tax rates where we’re going to completely disempower the innovators in the country because the new class, the new technocratic class wants to keep their position and they want to keep anybody else from coming in the game… I mean, it’s just crazy to me.”

Corgan then pivoted to chastising protestors, possibly those who’ve made themselves visible at Donald Trump rallies. The musician went so far as to say that the actions of those men and women, whom he refers to with the dismissive term “social justice warriors,” are tantamount to infringing on free speech.

“When I watch some of the clips … of some of these protests, I have no respect for what these people are doing,” Corgan told Jones. “They’re shutting down free speech. … I just don’t get it. To me it’s antithetical to the society that I believe in. But I try to listen to their argument. The tactics in the social-justice warrior movement are to stifle and shut down free speech. And I would argue in the world that I live in, which is the bareknuckle world, they’re leveraging their position because they don’t have power.”

Corgan added, “I don’t care what your hashtag argument is. If you don’t stand for free speech, you do not stand for America.”

Corgan’s interview also featured him griping about how people face backlash for using the “wrong racial epithet” or “look down at the wrong part of your body.”