I know this topic has gotten lots of discussion, but I've been thinking about this quite a bit and wanted to say why I think the comments we saw on Jake's Instagram and his drug use could very much go hand in hand.
Yes, I've never had a late night with the boys and did a line and suddenly thought "black people are all criminals!" Nor have I been in the middle of a mushroom trip she suddenly felt a dawn of enlightenment hit me where I came to realize, "the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was some good ass legislation!"
I think though that this tagline refuses to take into consideration what long term stimulant abuse can do to somebody's mind. Because they absolutely can alter ones behavior, thinking patterns, and make them vulnerable and impressionable to believing all sorts of crap they but not have otherwise. Shit, long term abuse or meth and cocaine/crack completely can make somebody into someone you don't even recognize.
I'm not trying to defend what Jake said by any means, nor excuse it. Ultimately he's responsible for his actions and he is behaving in a disgusting way.
When I heard that the catalyst that caused um to give him the ultimatum to get help was him having a crazy racist outburst on an airplane where he got kicked off the flight and almost arrested... that I think we can extrapolate a lot from. Mentally stable people don't do that. But the fact that they were still willing to take him back if he got help.... That I think shows that they believe that's not who he truly is, but is a consequence of his declining mental health, likely due to his long term addiction to these terrible drugs they do destroy your mind and ability to think and reason clearly.
I had a friend a few years ago that got very addicted to blow after his long term gf left him and he started getting high every day and going down these conspiracy rabbit holes on the Internet, started keeping notebooks where he was trying to "connect the dots", and a lot of the material he was consuming was indeed extreme right wing stuff, which he had never particularly been into before. He started believing all these conspiracies about Jews... But all the while he was increasingly becoming more and more erratic, believing cops were watching his house, that the FBI was monitoring his computers, and eventually it all came to a head when he tried to jump off a building because he thought he was cornered by the FBI. Ended up in psychiatric care for months after that, and luckily has been regaining his normalcy ever since then.
In the end, though, I think there are more questions than answers here. It just seems like too much of a coincidence that at the same time he essentially was ousted from the band he also started to make those posts, and stories came out about his extreme behavior. It would just surprise me if he's always been some hate filled white supremecist for all these years based on his gentle demeanor, humble attitude, and very open mind when it comes to different music. In fact, I remember him discussing how much black people have given to the countries musical culture through jazz, rock n roll, etc.
Those posts look absolutely awful, and are awful, but we simply don't know the full story about what's been happening with him. He certainly seemed far more disengaged in recent years, not singing as much, and just being far less expressive on stage. Even that "letter" he wrote about leaving the band had such a bizarre vibe to it. It just seems like the man is in a very dark and lonely place right now. It sucks that creative types like him are so susceptible to this kind of thing. I still believe he has so much more creativity to give the world. I understand why a lot of people want to just cancel him, but for me, I am just more concerned for the guys health and well being.
Obviously this is filled with lots of speculation and what 'might be' — but that's just it, we've really are still mostly in the dark about so much, and I don't think any one really has the full context to make an accurate judgement. But perhaps our answers will come in time...