Donald Trump’s political base has been regularly fortified by a demographic raised on this century’s country music. Moreover, country music has grown so big that pop stars are now gravitating to it in the same way country stars once gravitated to pop in the 2010s. Just listen to recent material by Beyoncé, Post Malone, Ed Sheeran, Lana Del Rey, and Sabrina Carpenter. Inadvertently, their cachet has helped normalize and mainstream the ethos of both country music and Trump.
Bro-country still lingers, too, its testosterone-fueled songs now sounding like manifestos for the stereotypical Trumpian male. Despite “backlash” subgenres like neo-traditional and boyfriend country emerging, the industry sees little reason to deviate too far from bro’s macho imagery, now marketed and manifested throughout the nation. The more politicized male acts have been given particular attention, coalescing into a sub-subgenre one might call “Trump country”.
Like Merle Haggard for Richard Nixon and Toby Keith for George Bush Jr., Trump has his own country music star representative in Jason Aldean. Now an old-school bro with a John Wayne image and demeanor, Aldean measured and manipulated the rising tide and temperature of Trumpism with “Try That In a Small Town” (2023).
Trump Country Music’s March
Calculated to create controversy and clicks by its co-writers, Kelley Lovelace, Neil Thrasher, Tully Kennedy, and Kurt Allison, the song’s anti-liberal message was framed as a vigilante fantasy of small-town (code: white conservative) America responding to urban protesters (code: Black Lives Matter). Its effect was far-reaching, helping stir and rally the Republican base just in time for the 2024 presidential election.
The contentious aspects of the song, though, had less to do with the lyrics—which differed little from any number of songs by Charlie Daniels, Hank Williams Jr., and Kid Rock—than the video, which propelled the song from a minor to a major hit. Against a backdrop of rioters that suggests lawless American cities, Aldean threatens the similarly inclined with “try that in a small town”, inferring that calling the police would not be his first line of response.
Other scenes show the singer and band performing in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, the infamous site of 18-year-old Henry Choate’s lynching in 1927, and the Columbia Uprising in 1947.
Reactions to the video from within country music culture were immediate, with Jason Isbell, Sheryl Crow, and Margo Price condemning its endorsement of vigilante justice, and Travis Tritt, Cody Johnson, and Brantley Gilbert defending the clip for its law and order message. Released at the same time various Republican presidential candidates were vying for their party’s nomination, co-option fever broke out. Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley both used the song at campaign rallies.
A product built to exploit emotions of fear and anger, Aldean’s song was ideal for politicians seeking to outflank Trump on the right. When Country Music Television and other outlets pulled the video from rotation, this enabled the far right’s cherished victim role to be played. Then South Dakota governor Kristi Noem feigned shock that anyone would want to “cancel” the song, while her Arkansas comrade-in-performative outrage, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, argued that the urban left should spend less time trying to ban songs and more time trying to stop criminals and looters.
Trump soon added to the chorus, posting on his Truth Social account, “Jason Aldean is a fantastic guy who just came out with a great new song. Support Jason all the way. MAGA!!!”
Trump, of course, went on to win the nomination and the 2024 election, supported by appearances along the campaign trail by Aldean. The atmosphere of anger and outrage the singer had helped create across red America perhaps helped the president-elect even more. Aldean got what he asked for, too, as Trump’s regime now applies the kind of unconstitutional treatment of civil protesters the singer would no doubt welcome.
Another song co-opted relentlessly by the far right in the same year, 2023, was “Rich Men North of Richmond”, by Oliver Anthony. Sounding more like Appalachian folk than bro-country, Anthony’s song came out of left field but soon landed on the political right’s plate. Bypassing the Nashville superstructure, “Rich Men North of Richmond” signaled a return to roots music after decades of country rock and pop dominance. It also evoked the same feelings of anger, grievance, and nostalgia Aldean had in “Try That in a Small Town”.
Like that song, Anthony’s struck a chord with heartland America, and it, too, shot to the top of the national Trump country music charts. Both songs tapped into populist appeals, and both spoke to and stoked working-class resentments by targeting perceived elites.
Early in the song, the populism appears to come from the left as the singer rages against low pay and greedy politicians in Washington. Then, though, the lyrics take a rightward turn as Anthony shifts the blame to a section of the poor by calling out “the obese milking welfare”, an update of Reagan’s “welfare queen” scapegoat.
By the time of the Republican primaries in 2023, Anthony’s song had gone viral, becoming a topic of national discussion. It was brought up in the first question of the primary debate on August 23rd when moderator Martha MacCallum of Fox News said, “As we sit here tonight, the number one song on the Billboard chart is called ‘Rich Men North of Richmond.’ It is by a singer from Farmville, Virginia, named Oliver Anthony. His lyrics speak of alienation, of deep frustration with the state of government and of this country.”
MacCallum then asked why the song was resonating so strongly, noting that Washington, D.C. is approximately 100 miles north of Richmond. This set up the participants to co-opt the song by aligning it with their own proposals for less government and less welfare spending.
Georgia U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene later jumped on the bandwagon, giving the song a nationalistic spin by calling it “the anthem of the forgotten Americans who truly support this nation.” In the ensuing weeks, it seemed that “Rich Men North of Richmond” was embraced by as many far-right influencers as MAGA voters.
Dismayed by the political exploitation of his song, Anthony’s protestations of misinterpretation and misappropriation were ultimately drowned out by the tsunami of far-right voices—as right-wing political strategist Steve Bannon would say, flooding the zone. Progressive country songwriter Nick Shoulders summarized, “It’s a song about the people who were trying to present [Anthony] as one of them, and it shows how insidious and intense the far right is when it attempts to co-opt country music and rural grievances.”
When co-opting country artists as their own, the far right gives them protected status. Thus, just as Trump is always pardoned for his “sins” and his indiscretions rationalized, so country singer Morgan Wallen was treated similarly when TMZ posted footage of him shouting out racial slurs. Although initially condemned within the industry, the singer was soon cast as a victim of the “gotcha” left.
Furthermore, Trump’s America rallied around the country star such that sales of his music shot up 339% the day after the incident. As with Aldean’s song, purchasing became part of the protest against cancel culture, a way of showing which side you are on. Trump country music, like Trump himself, essentially means that as long as your hurtful words or actions provoke or “own” the liberals, you will not face negative consequences for them. In fact, those moral failings can boost your career and make you a hero of the MAGA masses.
Hick-Hop’s Bro Country Beat
One subgenre of Trump country music that has made divisive resentment politics its primary appeal is country rap, or “hick-hop”. As both rap and country music have gradually drifted to the right in recent years, each increasingly driven by a monetary incentive, it was inevitable that they would cross paths despite their historic antipathy to one another. Bro-country integrated elements of rap and introduced some unlikely collaborations, Ludacris teaming up with Aldean for the remix of “Dirt Road Anthem” (2011) and Florida Georgia Line featuring Nelly on the “Cruise” (2012) remix. All concerned benefited commercially from the mergers.
Country rap departs from these past ventures by going all-in on both genres, giving full recognition to the reality that most young people raised on country music this century were also raised on rap. Colt Ford is a key figure in this subgenre, producing his own country rap in the late 2000s while introducing others via his Average Joes Entertainment label. His tentacles of influence reached into bro-country, too; it was he who first penned and performed “Dirt Road Anthem” in 2008. Bubba Sparxxx was also an early innovator, his Deliverance (2003) album drawing attention to Georgia as the hub of country rap activity.
Common to this subculture is a hard-right bent that takes the topics of bro-country—trucks, mudding, drinking, and pretty girls in boots ‘n’ jorts—then adds images with a more political identity: guns, “rednecks”, and Confederate flags. Without support from Nashville’s Music Row or country radio, country rap operates much like Ku Klux Klan-funded country did during the 1960s; in the shadows and on the periphery of society.
There, greater space and autonomy enable an extreme and full-throated version of conservative country, one more appealing to militia types than mainstream Republicans. Among the ranks of these rap warriors are the Lacs, who host their own annual festival in Blackshear, Georgia, where bro-country fantasies are lived out and Trump is branded on shirts and hats. Their song, “Let Your Country Hang Out” (2012), advocates flying the Confederate flag in your front yard, a gesture that posse member “Uncle Snap” Sharpe justifies as satiating fans that identify with this symbol of southern pride and liberal trolling.
Other acts include Big Smo, who channels his inner Hank Jr. with “Rednecks Got It Right” (2015), and Upchurch, a comedian turned social media star who has maximized his profits by playing to hard-right white supporters who care little for rap but a lot for the messaging. In “Bloodshed” (2018), Upchurch offers a Trumpian take on the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally with the lines, “Hate groups throwin’ piss ‘cause they’re mad at a monument / …You fuckin’ degenerate, get your lazy ass off the grass / This ain’t a statue of slavery.”
MAGA rapper Forgiato Blow survives through the online sale of Trump-loving and liberal-hating music and merchandise. As a committed activist rapper, he serves an important role for his political hero, keeping his followers in a perpetually elevated state of anger and aggression, in the process herding them into a de facto private army ready and prepared to intimidate or attack any dissenters or detractors.
Trump Country Music’s Tuning Fork
All authoritarians seek to legitimize their regimes by establishing a subservient cultural wing. With its vast majority of fans voting Republican, Trump country music is a genre suited for the current administration to court, cultivate, and co-opt. As sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom recently noted, “Our nation’s politics…have gone white nationalist. That makes country music, and Nashville, a good fit for the moment.” ( She continues, “Trumpist power brokers want to turn Nashville into the right wing’s Hollywood. They want Nashville for the same reason they want universities and the Kennedy Center.”
To achieve this goal requires willing participants and alliances, artists and industries prepared to accept, express, and promote the requisite politics. In Trump country music, the far right has found that those involved are either drawn in by ideology or incentivized by the financial rewards available. Today’s country music culture has become a quid pro quo zone in which all involved parties are rewarded for their graft and exploitation.
For this to flourish, a network of communications is needed, an echo chamber where the voices of far-right country bounce into far-right media, which bounce into far-right politics, all ultimately bouncing back to the country fans that finance them all. Those consumers are (unwitting) contributors, prompted with values-based propaganda by their cultural representatives to buy the ideologically right music (e.g., Aldean) and to boycott dissenters (e.g., the Chicks).
For this circular flow of Trump country music to run smoothly, all artists are obliged to tow the party line. Thus, when country superstar Zach Bryan recently had the audacity to include lyrics in a song that critique the activities of ICE, he immediately incurred the wrath of both Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, and its secretary, Kristi Noem. Surveying what is currently happening elsewhere across America’s cultural landscape, one might ask: Will country music be next to experience the threats, bribes, and shakedowns necessary to create a Trump-friendly world of entertainment?
Works Cited [underway]
Barnette, Emma and Egwuonwu, Nnamdi. “Haley and Ramaswamy play Jason Aldean song ‘Try That In A Small Town’ at campaign events”. NBC News. 20 July 2023.
Cox, Bradley. “Shooter Jennings Says ‘Try That In A Small Town” Shouldn’t Be Considered For A Grammy Because It’s A Crappy Song’”. WhiskeyRiff. 3 November 2023.
Sforza, Lauren. “Noem ‘shocked’ over attempts to ‘cancel’ Jason Aldean, his song and beliefs”. The Hill. 19 July 2023.
Zemler, Emily. “Sheryl Crow Slams Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’: ‘It’s Just Lame’”. Rolling Stone. 19 July 2023.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFIBpVMoxWs)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/opinion/country-music-beyonce-lana.html)
(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/arts/music/zach-bryan-song-kristi-noem.htm
