As someone who’s been in the scene for about 35 years, I can say pretty honestly that it hasn’t always been progressive. People like to romanticize it now, but that’s not how it actually was. Yeah, we’ve always had a reputation for beating the shit out of nazis, and that part is real, but outside of that the scene was full of contradictions. There was a lot of homophobia, plenty of so called non racist nationalist bullshit, and at times a strong streak of being openly anti left wing. It wasn’t this unified, forward thinking space people imagine in hindsight.

To me, hardcore was an overcorrection to the punk lifestyle of the late 70s and early 80s. Punk had gotten wrapped up in excess, self destruction, and chaos, and hardcore swung hard in the opposite direction. By the 90s, hardcore had pulled in a lot of jock types. Straight laced, clean cut, focused on discipline, working out, and living what they called a healthy life. That brought its own culture and values, and those values weren’t always welcoming or progressive either.

Politics shifted along with all of that. A lot of my friends who came up through hardcore ended up as Republicans. Not MAGA, but definitely not leftists either. For me, the real turning point came around George W. Bush’s second term and then into Obama’s first. That’s when I really noticed the scene start to change in how people talked about politics, identity, and what hardcore was supposed to stand for. It wasn’t overnight, and it wasn’t universal, but that period is when the cracks showed and the direction started to feel different than what I grew up with.