#ThrowbackThursday: “We’re Not Gonna Take It” By Twisted Sister

By Sean Smith

Today marks the 118th day of President Donald J. Trump’s Presidency. Regardless of your political leanings, or whether you voted for him or Hillary Clinton, we can agree that these past 118 days have been interesting.

The last week and a half of the Trump Presidency specifically, have been quite thought-provoking. It started when the President fired the FBI Director James Comey last Tuesday. It was only the second time in the history of the United States that the leader of the FBI has been fired. The first time being in 1993, when President Bill Clinton fired William Sessions from the bureau after a report including testimony from over 100 FBI agents came out accusing Sessions of using FBI resources to benefit himself. Specifically, funding vacations for himself and his wife. That firing was by no means controversial, as the move was supported by members of both political parties.This is not so much the case in the firing of Comey. The story behind the firing by Trump’s administration has been less than consistent. At first, his team claimed the firing was due to a report by senior members of his Justice Department which claimed the firing was due to the director losing the confidence of the FBI as an organization. The next day, Trump came out himself and contradicted that reasoning, and even admitted to the fact that the continued FBI investigation into his campaign was on his mind when he made his decision.

As the fallout surrounding the dismissal of James Comey was still swirling, this past Monday a Washington Post story came out asserting that President Trump disclosed classified information when he met with Russian Ambassador, and well known member of Russian intelligence, Sergey Kislyak. The crucial aspect of the story was that the information disclosed came from Israeli intelligence, and the President did not attain permission from Israel to share this info prior to disclosing it. This is problematic from the Israeli perspective because not only could it put in peril the intelligence agent or agents they have on the ground collecting this information, but the information given to Russia could then be relayed to one of Israel’s biggest adversaries in the region, Iran.

As the country was still trying to wrap their heads around these past two controversies, yet another bombshell was dropped on Tuesday evening. Sources close to former FBI director James Comey revealed the existence of several contemporaneous memos written by Comey involving questionable behavior by President Trump. The most problematic of these revelations being that during a meeting on February 14, the day following the firing of former Trump national security advisor General Michael Flynn, the President more or less asked Comey to drop the ongoing FBI investigation of Flynn. This accusation raises the possibility that the President used his power and influence as President to interfere with an ongoing FBI investigation.

These of course are just the latest controversies surrounding the, shall we say, “unconventional” Presidency of Donald Trump thus far. While Democrats have been quick to pounce on the President for many of his “unconventional” actions and tactics, Republicans in large part have stood by the President. However, as I am writing this on Wednesday morning, some Republicans are beginning to break away from supporting the President, and are raising serious concerns over the developments of this past week and a half.

While up to this point, many elected Republicans in congress (and some voters who supported his election) have held their nose and stood by him in order to advance their party’s policies, they may now be coming to the conclusion that standing by Trump may be doing more harm to the Republican party and the United States than good. In the words of the classic Twisted Sister track, they may now be ready to stand up and say “We’re not gonna take it anymore.”

Dee Snider of Twisted Sister has had a long friendship with President Trump. In the early stages of Trump’s campaign for the Presidency, Snider allowed Trump to use the song “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as the outro song for his rallies. However, perhaps like many Republicans are now second guessing their decisions to stand by Trump, Snider soon had a change of heart and asked the soon to be elected President to not use his band’s song any longer during his campaign. This was because Snider did not agree with many things that Trump was saying on the campaign trail.

With all of this in mind, this week we want to take a moment to look back and remember the 1980’s Twisted Sister classic tune “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

Twisted Sister released their third studio album Stay Hungry in 1984. The band released “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as the lead single for the album on April 27, 1984. The track quickly rose on the charts and achieved a decent amount of success topping out on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at the 21st spot.

Dee Snider, the lead singer of Twisted Sister, started writing the song in 1980. He had come up with the now iconic chorus but had not been able to put the verses together prior to the band releasing their debut album Under the Blade. In fact, the song wouldn’t be finished in time to be included on the second album either. It wasn’t until 1983 that Snider was able to finally piece together the verses to complete the song. The inspiration for completing the song came from Snider listening to Def Leppard. He noticed that they were including the lyrics from the choruses in their verses, which gave him the freedom to try and do the same.

The success of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as the lead single to Stay Hungry, as well as the video for the track receiving heavy airplay on the new television medium of MTV, helped Twisted Sister gain widespread fame and notoriety.

So with the events surrounding the Trump Administration over the last week and a half, and Republicans now seemingly questioning their steadfast support of the President, this week we take a moment to remember the 1984 Twisted Sister classic “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Enjoy.

Twisted Sister 

“We’re Not Gonna Take It”

From Stay Hungry 

Atlantic Records

Dee Snider Talks President Trump Using “We’re Not Gonna Take It” At Campaign Rallies 

 From Fox 411 

Fox News 

(June 2016)

Dee Snider Sings “We’re Not Gonna Take It” With The Trump Family 

(Posted To YouTube In September 2014)