The Right's New Favorite Country Song

( Steve Helber / AP Photo )
Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. At the Republican debate on Fox last week, they set up the first question, as many of you know, with the hit country song Rich Men North of Richmond by Oliver Anthony, which expresses the class resentment of a guy working a manual labor job getting what the song calls "bowl bleep pay," while the rich men north of Richmond, apparently a reference to Washington DC, want to have total control and your money is taxed to no end toward, as the title suggests, rich men in Washington DC who want to control you. The song also says this.
[music - Oliver Anthony: Rich Men North of Richmond]
Oliver Anthony: I wish politicians
Would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere.
Brian Lehrer: A little resentment of people on welfare, a little fat phobia thrown in there for good measure. That line that the government should take care of miners, meaning workers like coal miners, rather than what it called minors, children, on an island somewhere, I guess that's a reference to foreign aid to poor countries or to immigration. Some say that even came from a QAnon conspiracy theory. You get the idea. Now, interestingly, after the debate, Oliver Anthony released a video expressing unhappiness that right-wing media is portraying him as their darling. He said this.
Oliver Anthony: The one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up into this. I'm disappointed to see like, it's aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I'm one of them. It's aggravating seeing certain musicians and politicians act like we're buddies and act like we're fighting the same struggle here, like that we're trying to present the same message. It was funny seeing my song in the presidential debate because it's like I wrote that song about those people.
Brian Lehrer: A couple of clips strung together there from Oliver Anthony's YouTube video. He also said he was defending poor people, not attacking them, and to look at the lyrics from other songs he wrote. I don't know if you heard that Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, definitely a liberal Democrat, who you might think is one of those elites who would criticize Anthony's song, tweeted this.
"I think progressives should listen to this, in part because it's just a good tune, but also because it shows the path of realignment. Anthony sings about the soullessness of work, SH wages, and the power of the elites, all problems the left has better solutions to than the right." That, from Connecticut senator Chris Murphy on Twitter, or X, or whatever we call it now.
Washington Post columnist, Greg Sargent wrote a piece before the debate called Why the Right Suddenly Loves This Country Singer. Let's see what he thinks now. Greg, thanks for joining. Welcome back to WNYC.
Greg Sargent: Thanks for having me on.
Brian Lehrer: The first point in your article was that the actual rich men north of Richmond would like this song because it channels the blame away from them, not toward them. Would you elaborate on that?
Greg Sargent: Sure. He does actually tell a good story, in some ways, about corporate greed and the support for it that exists in Washington, captured government, and so forth, but the second half of the song really does direct blame away from the rich men north of Richmond. It tells a story that's very much what the rich men north of Richmond have told for decades now in order to take blame away from themselves, which is that working-class struggles can be primarily blamed on high taxes, welfare cheats, and elite wokeness, which I think is alluded to in the song.
Brian Lehrer: You're right that business lobbyists and right-wing politicians have told versions of this distorted story for decades. Take us into some of that history that would way predate the current culture war polarization of the Trump era.
Greg Sargent: Well, it just goes back decades where the Chamber of Commerce types, the big business lobbyists, and big corporate lobbyists have perpetually told a story in which high taxes and too much government regulation and too many government handouts are the real things slowing down the economy and making life worse for working people. That story, obviously, is very self-serving for them.
To hear that coming from this singer who, it's a good tune, don't get me wrong. It's great that he tried to capture working-class angst that way, but he also, I think, perpetuated the story that the rich men north of Richmond really have liked to tell for their own benefit for a long time.
Brian Lehrer: You give an example of who lined up where, when the Obama administration tried to expand, which workers qualify for overtime pay. That's actually not a very well-known policy debate. What happened there?
Greg Sargent: Well, Obama tried to raise the threshold for qualification for overtime pay with a rule, a federal rule, and that would have meant higher overtime for millions and millions of people like Oliver Anthony. The rich men north of Richmond, aka the big business groups, and some small business groups, too, in fairness, opposed that move. At least 40 Republican senators lined up with them to oppose it. It was essentially stopped in court because of that.
We can essentially look at that and say, okay, some rich men north of Richmond did in fact try to keep overtime pay down for people like Oliver Anthony, but a fair amount of elites tried to raise it. I think that that is something that his listeners might want to know.
Brian Lehrer: You're right that Biden may take another crack at that issue this fall. What's on the agenda?
Greg Sargent: Well, it's possible that Biden, the Labor Department, will roll out a new rule of some kind that tries to raise the overtime threshold to something akin to where Obama tried to do it. Now, let me say in fairness, that President Trump did raise the overtime rule, but it was only by-- Sorry, he did raise the overtime threshold when he was president, but it was only by a marginal amount and an amount that business groups could accept.
Now, if Biden goes through with what I expect him to, then we'll again have a big policy debate over whether the federal government should step in and make life better for millions and millions of people like Oliver Anthony. I guarantee you that all the Republican politicians who are extolling that song right now will line up against that rule.
Brian Lehrer: Will listeners of that song perceive the government as being the rich men north of Richmond or the business loppy listeners, any Rich Men North of Richmond fans out there? It is number one on the Billboard charts. Anyone out there has bought the single and wants to interpret it according to you, or anyone else with a comment or a question, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text for Greg Sargent, Washington Post columnist who's written about this, or tweet @BrianLehrer.
Greg, on the antitax sentiment in the song, which he seems to blame on undeserving poor people as opposed to deserving ones, you fact-checked that connection, too, in your column. How so?
Greg Sargent: Yes, and I'd like to address what you mentioned before, which is that in fairness to Oliver Anthony-- I don't know if that's his real name, by the way, but we could call him that. In fairness to him, he did try to clarify in that YouTube video that you played just a few minutes ago, and he said he wasn't attacking poor people. That's fine, but the song really does divide poor people into the, "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. It's very explicit on that point.
He says that there are people who are starving in the streets, by which he seems to mean deserving poor, and then the welfare milkers who are 300 pounds, by which he seems to mean undeserving poor. That's it. That is an [inaudible 00:08:52] that I think the rich men north of Richmond really like to hear a lot of because it tends to create suspicion among people about whether government programs for the less fortunate are actually trustworthy. Should we be sending our tax dollars to this type of thing? I think that it would be great if he would clarify a little further that he really-- I'd love to hear him talk a little more about what he actually meant when he talked about the 300-pound welfare cheats.
Brian Lehrer: I don't think you framed that in racial terms in your column. Oliver Anthony didn't say in the song that the 300-pound welfare cheat eating fudge rounds- he didn't even say cheat, just welfare recipient eating fudge rounds on our tax dollars is Black. Maybe it's unfair to ascribe that implication to the song.
We know how Ronald Reagan used welfare queen imagery, as it was called, at the time. We know that Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. Somehow I don't think it will be received by the country music audience as being about poor white people in Appalachia or something like that, or is that unfair?
Greg Sargent: Well, I don't really know how it would be received, but I definitely agree with you that it would be unfair to ascribe to him a racial message there, 100%. I'm not sure why people concluded that. It wasn't clear to me at all.
Brian Lehrer: Yet, this is a big historical throughline in American politics.
Greg Sargent: For sure.
Brian Lehrer: I've been thinking about that, race Trump's class, informing political coalitions of workers in this country. I actually want to replay a couple of clips that we used yesterday on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the March On Washington, which as you know is remembered mostly for Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, but march director A. Philip Randolph was also a labor leader, and here's what he said in his speech at the March on Washington 60 years ago, yesterday.
Philip Randolph: Look for the enemies of Medicare, of higher minimum wages, of social security, of federal aid to education, and there you will find the enemy of the negro, the coalition of Dixiecrats and reactionary Republicans that seek to dominate the congress.
Brian Lehrer: He also said this.
Philip Randolph: It falls to us to demand new forms of social planning, to create full employment, and to put automation at the service of human needs, not at the service of profits.
Brian Lehrer: Now, Greg, we played those yesterday as examples of how we're still talking about the same issues 60 years later, by and large. He could have framed it too as the rich men north of Richmond in 1963, referring to the business lobby and the Republicans who support them. He used just slightly different words, but I think the same grievances are heard very differently by, let's say, Donald Trump supporters than by supporters of Martin Luther King's Poor People's campaign or supporters of Bernie Sanders.
I guess my question is, do you think a multi-racial poor and working-class coalition is possible in this country where their economic interests coincide?
Greg Sargent: Well, I think we have something like that in the Democratic coalition right now. A very large percentage of Biden supporters in the 2020 election, or at least a majority of them according to Pew, were non-college-educated people. There, you have a very large number of millions and millions and millions of non-college non-whites joining with maybe a pretty small minority of non-college whites who don't support Trump to create something like a coalition of the type you're talking about. Obviously, we need it to be much bigger and more durable than it is.
One point about what you said before about how differently people in Appalachia might perceive this stuff, one thing that is interesting to me about the phrase Rich Men North of Richmond is that it seems to exempt southern elites. Remember his song, he's talking about his experience working in a factory in western North Carolina, I believe where it was. Where does the local oligarch who either owns or runs that factory and was paying him what he called BS wages fit into the song?
One other point, on your point about how this really ends up dividing the working class coalition that we need, that's what the deserving versus undeserving poor dichotomy actually does. It essentially tells working people that their real problem isn't just elites and elite capture of government but also the welfare cheats below. His song's message works against the very type of coalition that you're talking about there.
Brian Lehrer: Did anything Anthony say in his video after the debate make you think differently about what he's really getting at, because I find myself confused now. It seemed to be the right-wing dog whistle that a lot of people heard it as, and yet he denied that and said he was talking about the Republicans on the debate stage as much as the Democrats, not just Biden. He said that other lyrics to others of his songs, which I haven't seen, show his support for poor people. He's not just you know vilifying people who receive welfare benefits. Not that it really matters what this one singer's politics are, but do you get what they are in maybe a more complex way than people interpreted him at first?
Greg Sargent: Yes, I think we should give him credit for the clarifications that he issued later. I take it seriously if he says that he wasn't trying to demonize any poor people. I do think it would be worthwhile if he would explain what he meant by the 300-pound people milking welfare, but my strong suspicion is that he just operates in a milieu where that talk is pretty prevalent. It just was really more of an expression of frustration than anything else, and understandably so. Things are really screwed up. Nobody's denying that.
I think it would be helpful if he would actually take his Newfound fame and start asking his new friends on the right some harder questions about why they pursue policies that support the rich men north of Richmond so vigorously.
Brian Lehrer: I'm going to read a few texts that are coming in. Let's see, as soon as I can get back to the text messages on my screen. Somebody writes, "In the news today, rich men north of Richmond moved to alleviate medical costs for pharmaceuticals while other rich men north of Richmond pushed to keep the costs high."
That's a very timely reference to a news story that, Greg, I don't know if you saw broke this morning about the Biden administration announcing the first 10 medications that are going to be subject to price negotiation with Medicare. I guess what the texter is referring to is that Democrats, by and large, were in favor of making the pharmaceutical companies negotiate with Medicare, and Republicans were against it.
Greg Sargent: Yes, well, there's another example of how misleading it is to characterize all elites as the rich men north of Richmond. It's a perfect example of it right there. It actually mirrors what we saw with the overtime pay fight, and we'll see again this fall.
Brian Lehrer: Another listener just writes, "I'm so annoyed I had managed to avoid hearing the song for weeks, and now I'm afraid it'll be stuck in my head forever." [chuckles]
Greg Sargent: Well, it's a good song. Let's face it. It really is a good song.
Brian Lehrer: It is nicely sung. I like his voice. I like his singing style, actually.
Greg Sargent: I think he seems like a pretty resilient guy. He's been through some pretty tough times. He bounced back. He managed to find a life pursuit that he really cares about. There was another video that he put out early on Just before the song really broke out where he talked about how he was really lost and did drugs, and alcohol, and so forth, and was really self-medicating because his life was pretty bad, but his music gave him purpose. A guy like that who's that resilient can take a little criticism as long as it's civil.
I've been a little surprised at some of the pushback, which holds that any criticism like that is just disrespectful. Why don't you try to make common cause with this guy? Well, part of dialogue is critiquing his views. I don't see what's wrong with that.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, and hopefully in respectful ways.
Greg Sargent: Yes, absolutely. Let's face it, there has been some very disrespectful criticism, no question, but that's the internet.
Brian Lehrer: Right. On the five foot three reference in that line, "if you're five foot three and you're 300 pounds, taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds." I mentioned a fat phobia implied there. We have a listener who texts that, "There's misogyny there, too because by referring to five foot three, that's an apparent woman's height." Have you heard that before?
Greg Sargent: I hadn't heard that one. This criticism, I want to leave to others. I just really want to focus on the story he's telling about what happened to the working classes of this country.
Brian Lehrer: Another listener texts, "It seems the apparent construction of Oliver Anthony's lyrics and his statement about the song's use aligns not with traditional conservative or liberal views, but rather reflects the old drain-the-swamp Trumpism." I find that text really interesting because I thought at the beginning of the Trump campaign in 2016, that he was in part besides all the racist stuff about Mexicans and Muslims and everything, that he was going for a certain economic populism. I thought when he got into office, he dropped it and did a line with the rich men north of Richmond in the business lobbies.
There is this idea that there is a drain-the-swamp populism that transcends traditional conservative or liberal lines that the writer is referring to. I'm not sure that it exists. What do you think?
Greg Sargent: I think in many ways, the song, if you just read the lyrics themselves and put aside his clarifications, it's pretty textbook right-wing populism in the sense that it configures the enemies as being both above and below. That's really a very standard right-wing populist trope. Note, there's some very vague stuff in the song, which seems to suggest he's talking about elite wokeness, where it says that the "Rich men north of Richmond want to know everything you do and think." That struck me as a reference to elite woke meddling in people's lives.
I'm not sure what he was referring to, but if that's what he was referring to, then this is very standard right-wing populism. Your main problems are the welfare cheats below, and the cultural elites above, and maybe the economic elites. We're talking about the cultural ones more.
Brian Lehrer: What do you think, as we wrap up, it's fair to expect from him? Or what do you think he might be going through now? As somebody who is totally unknown, like a month ago, and now has this breakout hit that everybody's talking about in these political terms, I think we can say he's at least started perhaps a useful national conversation by the way that it's transcending political lines. I don't know if you agree, but what do you think he might be going through right now, in his own mind, as the next steps for him?
Greg Sargent: Oh, well, I do agree with you, really. It is a useful conversation. I just wish that we were allowed to critique the song without being told we're disrespecting him or whatever. He put out a text, and it should be subject to people's thoughts and reactions. From his perspective, like I said, he seems like a really resilient and, in his own way, a very sharp guy. He seems to know what he's doing, I think. If you watch the two long videos where he talks about his life, he seemed to expect that the song would explode out the way it did. I don't know why he expected that, but he seemed to.
He seems to actually be handling it pretty well. His criticism of Republicans was pretty interesting. I'd really love to hear more from him about that because, like I say, there's a real opportunity for him to use his stature to sharpen that criticism of what's happened to the working classes with regard to-- From the perspective of the role that these rich men north of Richmond, the Republicans he's lambasting, played in that.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, maybe he thought it was going to break out because he thought he was going to ride the coattails of that right-wing Jason Aldean country song about- I forget the exact title, Don't Try That in My Community, that kind of thing.
Greg Sargent: Yes, my small town, right. I suppose there's certainly some similarities there, for sure.
Brian Lehrer: We leave it there for now with Greg Sargent, Washington Post columnist. Greg, thanks a lot.
Greg Sargent: Thanks very much.
Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.