DERRY, N.H. — Conservative divorcee and frequent conspiracy forum visitor Ken Doherty claims his lifestyle epitomizes the punk rock ethos, according to sources who follow his Telegram channel.
“Punk rock is about going against the grain and saying ‘Fuck you!’ to authority,” explained Mr. Doherty as he fastened a Back the Blue flag to his truck. “Right now, mainstream culture in this country is all commie and woke. I’m 100% anti-woke, so I’d say that makes me punk as fuck. Punk rejects the trappings of a society that tries to drag you down with things like a wife or a relationship with your ungrateful kids. My son is a beta cuck soyboy and my daughter is a typical leftist NPC. I guess they went no-contact on me because they couldn’t handle all the counterculture truth bombs I’m always dropping.”
Doherty’s daughter Clementine has a different opinion regarding her estrangement from her father.
“He was actually a pretty decent dad growing up,” said Ms. Doherty. “But when he got into the MAGA and conspiracy stuff, he changed. He said Obama was a Muslim terrorist sleeper agent, and that Hillary Clinton was a literal demon. He was at the Capitol on January 6th, of course. The last straw was when he blew my parents’ retirement savings on Trump NFTs and Infowars supplements. So now this piece of shit wants to say he’s punk because he’s going against the norms of decent society? That’s bullshit. And dad, if you’re reading this: Three Doors Down and Kid Rock are not punk. Punk is the stuff you used to yell at us to ‘turn the fuck down.’”
Music journalist Layne Harvey says conservatives have been attempting to co-opt punk almost from its beginnings.
“Fascists have no culture of their own, so they rely on absorbing and perverting existing art and music in a parasitic manner,” said Harvey. “In the early ‘80s, British Conservatives tried to portray Margaret Thatcher as some kind of iconoclastic punk icon, which of course failed miserably. Somewhere there’s a warehouse filled with unsold ‘Punks for Thatcher’ posters. In the US, Reagan’s White House communications director Pat Buchanan was forced to dress punk in a doomed bid to attract a younger demographic. That effort was cut short when one of Buchanan’s liberty spikes nearly put out the president’s eye.”
At press time, Mr. Doherty had reportedly been prompting ChatGPT to rewrite Bad Religion lyrics as pro-Trump anthems.