Country music star Jason Aldean’s fans are listening. The question is, is the rest of the country?
Aldean has been the target of leftist fulminations this week over a video released Friday to accompany his song “Try That in a Small Town,” skewering the riots that burned American cities in 2020 and the rampant crime that’s continuing today.
But the most brazen public attempt to shut him down has apparently backfired — badly.
On Tuesday, CMT, the paid TV network that dominates programming of country music videos, concerts and country-western fare, surrendered almost preemptively to screeching from the left to pull Aldean’s video from its rotation.
On Wednesday, the song had the hit No. 1 on the iTunes chart.
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Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town” has reached #1 on US iTunes. pic.twitter.com/PXZa31xpp4
— Billboard Charts (@billboardnewsb) July 19, 2023
CMT hasn’t commented on its decision, beyond confirming it in an email, USA Today reported Wednesday, but it isn’t hard to guess.
After Aldean’s video went public, the usual suspects began screeching. The leftist Daily Beast headlined its report on the controversy Monday with: “Jason Aldean Catches Heat for Racist, Pro-Gun Lyrics: ‘a Modern Lynching Song.’”
Note how the word “racist” requires no quotation marks in The Daily Beast headline, indicating it’s simply another adjective, like “pro-gun,” that describes a self-evident mindset.
(On Tuesday, just to make sure no one missed the point, The Daily Best headlined its report about CMT’s move with “Jason Aldean Defends Racist, Pro-Gun Song as CMT Yanks Music Video.”)
In Tennessee, state Rep. Justin Jones, one of the radicals who was expelled from the state House and then reinstated in the aftermath of the Nashville Covenant School shooting, took to Twitter to denounce what he called the song’s call for “racist violence.”
The problem is, Aldean’s song doesn’t call for “racist violence.” Nor does the video.
Check it out here:
This is the Jason Aldean video that CMT pulled for being “too controversial.”
This song represents me and millions of others. CMT pulled a Bud Light and we won’t forget. pic.twitter.com/tQx2EpzEzR
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) July 19, 2023
What it depicts is the violence that ravaged the country in 2020 by mobs of all races capitalizing on the death of a drug-abusing, suspected counterfeiter named George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.
“This song represents me and millions of others,” conservative political activist Ryan Fournier wrote in a Twitter post. “CMT pulled a Bud Light and we won’t forget.”
The fact that those images bother leftists more in 2023 than the same images did in 2020 says more about the progressive movement than its advocates will ever admit.
News of Aldean hitting No. 1, had conservatives applauding.
“Whenever they try and censor us, we only go stronger,” Republican firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado wrote in a Twitter post.
The iTunes charts have spoken – Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town” is number one.
Whenever they try and censor us, we only go stronger.
Time for CMT to get the Bud Light treatment. pic.twitter.com/NW3EpJSp7y
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) July 19, 2023
Another social media user agreed.
“They tried to ban this song about violence & crime, even removing it from Country Music TV …,” the user wrote. “So the people did what people do best and decided for themselves.”
They tried to ban this song about violence & crime, even removing it from Country Music TV …
So the people did what people do best and decided for themselves.
Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town” is #1 on US iTunes
The people will decide!
— Bernie’s Tweets (@BernieSpofforth) July 19, 2023
One of the most nauseating criticisms of the video is that it was shot, as USA Today reported, at the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, the scene of the lynching of a black man in 1927.
Dredging up an anti-black crime from nearly a century ago to smear a white music performer of today is a signal of just how far the demagogues of the left have to go to justify their fake “outrage” at anything that stands in the way of the leftist agenda. It cheapens the victim of the past, turning his memory into a puppet on the string of power politics.
It cheapens the country of the present and the decades of progress toward racial equality its made. The United States is simply not the racist hellhole liberals wish it was.
Even the constant beat of the grievance drum has its limits though, and it’s a good chance that Aldean’s song and its position at the top of the iTunes chart is a sign that those limits are being reached.
The cowards who supposedly lead American culture today — the CMT executives who pulled a completely harmless video after getting the vapors — might think they’re in tune with the times, but they’re simply getting more out of step.
Do you think country artists should write more anti-woke songs?
Yes: 94% (15 Votes)
No: 6% (1 Votes)
Just as Aldean fans got the message from his video loud and clear, any honest person who listened and watched knew exactly what was happening — it’s no accident that the criminals and thugs in its news footage come from across the racial spectrum.
It takes leftist lies to turn that into something its not. Apparently, the CMT suits were willing to listen to those lies. For the rest of America, it’s becoming a different story.
