Country music expresses the heart of America.  The left hates the heart of America ("the fruited plain," as Rush Limbaugh used to call it), so the left hates most country music.  The woke mob's attacks against Jason Aldean and his hit song "Try That in a Small Town," as country superstar Lee Greenwood has noted, have "struck directly through the heart of country music."  Greenwood added: "Cancel culture mob attacked Jason Aldean.  They came for 'God Bless the USA.'  But they can't cancel all of us."

Jason's song has been denounced as "racist" by the progressive elites.  The New York Times (promoter of the "1619 Project," which views America's beginnings as the story of a "slaveocracy") claims that "critics" of the song have denounced it as an alleged "call to racist vigilantism."  But the song and accompanying video are nothing of the kind.  Even Joe Rogan — who survived his own attempted takedown by the left's cancel mob — has remarked on the ridiculous outrage against the song.

"Try That in a Small Town" is clearly about self-defense and protecting rural and small-town America from the violence sweeping so many of our major cities run by liberal politicians.  Aldean's defense of his song and video as not being in any way racist falls on deaf ears.  That is because the left's actual "offense" at the song has nothing to do with race at all; instead, it's a smokescreen intended to make small-town and rural America doubt itself, to put it on the defensive, and to try to project liberal guilt about liberals' own racism upon Middle America.  White liberals, after all, are the ones who contend that many blacks are incapable of getting IDs and can't find the DMV.  They are the ultimate racists.

Elite progressive hatred of the song is also based on fear.  The left is apoplectic over average Americans defending themselves.  The left's real objection to the song has to do with its own political power and elite cowardice.  The short-term goal is to sway suburban women and independents in the next election away from the traditional values of Middle America by falsely smearing the latter as "racist."  The other reason the left objects to the song is because of cowardice.  Elite cowards know that they cannot forever count on compromised agents of the Deep State and Antifa terrorists to do their bidding.  The idea that half the country is, like Kyle Rittenhouse, armed and ready to defend itself against leftist street thugs and revolutionaries frustrates them to no end.  Antifa thugs and their fellow communist foot soldiers are actually pretty paltry in number compared to the nation at large.  America's modern-day Minutemen are not looking for trouble, but if serious trouble comes to the small towns of America, and if local law enforcement is overwhelmed, Middle America is ready.  That is clearly what the song is all about.

More recently, another country song, "Rich Men North of Richmond," by a previously complete unknown, Oliver Anthony, blasted to the top of the iTunes General Chart and Billboard Hot 100 and has become a video phenomenon.  It is a lament over how rich elites are ripping off the little guy, who is falling more and more behind not just economically, but also in  personal well-being.  The song cuts across all political and social lines among those who are hurting from the policies of the Washington, D.C. Establishment and the endless corruption of the swamp.  It expresses deep frustration over what has been lost, much like Toby Keith's earlier piercing ballad, "Happy Birthday America."  Aldean's song, on the other hand, is a call to action.  The AV Club entertainment site, in comparing Aldean's and Anthony's songs, claims that that the latter's lyrics, while allegedly not "as blatantly threatening as 'Try That in a Small Town,'" are nevertheless still "threatening" and "frightening."  Wow.  Now even laments are "threatening" if they speak about truths that are inconvenient to the left. 

Putting such labels on music would also seem to reflect a desire — whether conscious or unconscious — to silence our voices.  What leftists fear is a "clarion call" to Middle America.  What is a "clarion call"?  In this sense, it is a clear call to action.  "Make America Great Again" might be viewed as a general clarion call.  But long before Trump came down the escalator, we had former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee issue a specific clarion call back in 2012 to stand with Chick-fil-A on "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day," which he designated as August 1, 2012.  Chick-fil-A was then under attack because of its executive's support for marriage.  Some Democrat politicians at the time were calling it "hate chicken."  Up until that point, I had never paid much attention to Chick-fil-A, but that day changed everything.  Like millions of other Americans, that day I ordered food from Chick-fil-A and have never looked back.  Huckabee's call to action was a resounding success.  Not only did Chick-fil-A survive the left's false and hateful attacks, but it is now thriving among its competitors in the fast food industry.

Music unites us, and "Try That in a Small Town" has served as another clarion call to Middle America.  It strikes a nerve.  The left's insane assault upon a normal and basic right — self-defense — has been obfuscated with cries of racism because the left has to lie most of the time about its real intentions.

Progressive overreaction to the song has been a boon to our side — upon learning of the left's denunciation of it, I, along with millions of other Americans, immediately downloaded it.  The left has not yet learned that when it attacks normal behavior with completely unjustified charges, not only will most of us ignore them, but we will start building alternative networks and new buying patterns.  We are now on the offensive!

This will take time.  Much of corporate America's embrace of wokeism caught many of us off-guard, but that won't happen again.  We are armed now, both physically and in our strategic thinking, and we are preparing for whatever comes next.  Meanwhile, to the bigots, racists, haters, liars, and cowards on the left, I say: we will buy what we want, we will boycott what we want, we will say what we want, we will protest what we want, and we will go where we want.  We are Americans.  What you have become, we really don't know anymore.  Or maybe we do.

Finally, not only should you not "try that in a small town"; maybe you should not try it at all.  

A.J. Melnick previously served as a U.S. government analyst in the Pentagon.

Image via Hippopx.