The viral country anthem "Rich Men North of Richmond" has struck a chord with many Americans who have celebrated it as an anguished outcry for a forgotten working class. On the other hand, the song has touched a nerve with many media liberals, who have lambasted it as misguided, conspiratorial and attracting the wrong fans.
Anthony (Above) covers a lot of ground in the song, lamenting high taxation, the declining value of the dollar, working "overtime hours for bulls--t pay," Washingotn political greed, the suicide epidemic, substance abuse, welfare cheats and a seeming reference to Jeffrey Epstein ("I wish politicians would look out for miners / And not just minors on an island somewhere"), among other woes.
His acoustic rendition of "Rich Men North of Richmond" on his Virginia farm has attracted an astonishing 21 million views and counting on YouTube, surged to the top of iTunes and is even competing with Taylor Swift's hit "Cruel Summer" on Spotify streams, according to Variety.
But with all that attention has come sharp scrutiny of Anthony's message, and many progressives don't like what they heard.
Writing for MSNBC, Paul Waldman said Anthony did not "adequately call out the powerful," blasting him for instead going after the "powerless."
"Anthony sings, ‘Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds / Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds,'" Waldman wrote. "Working-class people have a lot of problems in America today, but the use of taxes for safety net programs is not one of them, and nothing about the narrator’s quality of life would improve if the U.S. began conditioning food stamp eligibility on a low body-mass index."
The Washington Post's Greg Sargent wrote the song had appeal with Republicans like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Arizona Republican Kari Lake because it didn't directly target the right enemies.
"Naturally, no one should expect serious policy analysis from a song," he wrote. "Nonetheless, its message is that the overworked and underpaid should blame their plight largely on high taxes, welfare cheats and cultural elites monitoring their thoughts for any departure from woke orthodoxy.
"Business lobbyists and right-wing politicians have told versions of this distorted story for decades. It seeks to turn people against taxing the rich, social spending and government regulations designed to protect the public and mitigate inequality." READ MORE...
