“Try That in a Small Town”
27th July 2023
is unlikely that Europeans will understand the controversy over Jason Aldean’s No. 1 country music hit “Try That In a Small Town,” and why it matters. But it really does matter, and you can’t really understand what’s happening in the U.S. culture war unless you take the Left’s smear of Aldean seriously.
Jason Aldean is a popular country music singer who, this past May, released a song called “Try That In a Small Town.” It’s a bog-standard country tune, undistinguished musically or lyrically. The song is a taunt to criminals and violent protesters, of the sort that flooded American cities during the Summer of George Floyd in 2020, and afterward. It tells them that if they try to get away with crime, or violently disrespecting authority, in a small town, they will be met with violence. Aldean has a line referring to the fact that small town people are armed.
…
When leftist ideologues constantly excuse criminality and other anti-social behavior, or even (as with violent and misogynistic rap lyrics) celebrate it, and at the same time damn white conservative males as bigots for writing songs defending law and order, and affirming the morality of violence to stop criminals—well, this is how Trump voters are made.