Right-wing Twitter is up in arms about Gwar “disembowelling” Donald Trump

Followers of Donald Trump are rallying against Gwar, after footage of the intergalactic heavy metal band ‘disembowelling’ someone dressed as the US president was posted online.

During their set at Riot Fest in Chicago on Saturday (September 20), the masked collective, who claim to be from the fighting pits of the planet Scumdogia, brought out an actor in an exaggerated Trump costume. Another actor – dressed as a green, hooved alien – then stabbed the Trump stand-in with a sword and pulled out his ‘intestines’, while the Trump costume sprayed fake blood into the air and out onto the audience.

Footage of the act was uploaded to X (formerly Twitter) by the right-wing account Libs of TikTok. The account added a caption that was strongly anti-Gwar, accusing them of being aligned with the Democratic Party, saying that Democrats “love promoting violence”, and claiming that the onstage stunt was incitement of political murder.

“Performers at Riot Fest in Chicago, Illinois, simulated the bloody disemboweling of President Trump on stage while people cheered,” reads the video caption.

“This is incitement. They know exactly what they’re doing. Democrats can’t help themselves. They love promoting violence.”

In truth, Gwar have been ‘murdering’ politicians from both sides of the political spectrum onstage for years. At Wacken Open Air festival in Germany in 2022, they ‘decapitated’ someone dressed as then-sitting Democrat president Joe Biden onstage and brought out actors dressed as China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and a Trump supporter. At a 2015 show, they ‘killed’ one-time Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

The responses to Libs Of TikTok’s post have been mixed, with some going along with the account’s attempted Gwar boycott.

“I was originally planning to see GWAR play live,” one user replied. “Well, I scratched (not checked off) that from my bucket list of bands I still want to see play live. “Don't give money to companies (or bands) who hate you.”

Other users, however, have pointed out Gwar’s history of ‘killing’ an array of politicians, as well as the fact that the band have been staging theatrical onstage violence for many years.

“That’s just Gwar being Gwar,” says one reply. “They’ve been ‘killing’ politicians at their shows for literally 3 decades now. It’s not incitement, it’s just part of the spectacle of a Gwar show. Notice that they also are all dressed up as giant alien monsters.”

While Gwar have been annoying people on the right, fellow metal musician Kid Rock has been getting under the skin of California’s Democratic state governor Gavin Newsom. Following an online back-and-forth between the two in August, Newsom took to X last weekend to ban the American Bad Ass singer from performing in California, on the grounds that he makes “horrific music”.