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Wouldn’t it be wild if he gets de-radicalized by seeing the GOP put him up as a poster child?
Then we can re-radicalize him to the correct side
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I don’t know that he’s radicalized towards the right, if you mean the GOP “right.” But he’s clearly articulating extreme anti-welfare views and blaming people on welfare for the issues of govt spending (when welfare is a small portion of govt spending). His anger is directed at poor people, instead of the wealthy who continue to get tax relief.
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I hear ya. Plenty of ways people can be radicalized, sadly.
His video this twist is based on has him directly saying “it’s not the fault of those people, welfare is a small portion of our budget”. It sounds kind of like he’s repeating back criticism that was directed at him and maybe he’s recognizing it’s either not that way or at least that it’s counter to his broader message. It’s not a woke turnaround by any means, and I think it’s find to be skeptical, but it’s kind of what you’d hope to see after someone points out that sort of criticism is just another tool of “the rich men”.
It’s punching down for the chorus instead of rallying people against the real problems. It’s the perfect conservative anthem since it says so much without taking a stand.
If you’re looking for music like this that’s actually based you might check out Pink Williams. He dropped a song called Blame the Poor on Tiktok the other day as a response to Rich Men North of Richmond that’s getting shared a bunch on the old site. It’s pretty good.
If Oliver wants to be a voice of the working class, he may need to read up more on working class history…
These people absolutely don’t want to be a voice for the working class, they want to be a voice for white, christian, abled, straight, cis men.
The right has always co opted leftist ideas to try and gain popularity and power, this shit is no different, and it is the people who buy in to it even a little who need the history lesson, because you’re having the wool pulled over your eyes.
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You know I loved this song as well. I wrote a comment about it on a country music meme here on Lemmy and recommend him. I got shit on since he is apparently right wing, a Nazi and much more. I couldn’t believe it.
I made the same mistake as you, i didn’t understand the lyrics properly and didn’t hear that stuff about fat people.
I watched his videos where he just talks and he seems like a nice redneck dude who just wants to live alone on his land and play music, so I still like him
“He’s a bigot, but he’s a bigot I relate to, so I still like him”
My hot take is that this guy ain’t the most well informed, and he’s fallen for some rightwing disinformation around Q and welfare.
BUT, he ain’t wrong about the rich fucking over the poor, he ain’t wrong about miners losing jobs and their sense of self worth, and he ain’t wrong about those rich assholes pandering with songs and media stunts instead of doing the real public service work. Also, he can hold a tune.
He has a YouTube playlist with literal “Jews did 9/11” conspiracy videos on it. The playlist is called things to make you think, or something like that. He’s an absolute tool
Agreed. But even broken clocks.
A broken clock may be right twice a day, but you never know when it’s right. You can’t rely on it to get any useful information. You should just ignore it, not praise it because it got lucky for two seconds out of tens of thousands.
I thought this at first but after reading the lyrics instead of listening I don’t really think he is complaining about rich people explicitly. “rich men north of richmond” is just a poetic way to say politicians, imo, and so the song seems just anti-government. I guess you could consider the first part about workin all day has working class vibes, but that isn’t a condemnation of rich people it’s just talking about how life sucks right now.
A lot of conservative politicians don’t seem to realize they are the swamp we wish to drain.
Kind of like when Paul Ryan mentioned Rage Against the Machine is his favorite band. He was literally part of the machine.
Paul Ryan is a cuck who literally told the Kochs that running for POTUS was too much work, but that VP would be palatable.
Then he went and lost anyway
Plenty of people ignore the lyrics of the songs they like. Even the ones with an exceptionally obvious message.
Liking Rage but ignoring the message is a lot harder than zoning out and thinking Born in the USA is about being patriotic. The message is kind of inextricable from Rage’s music.
I never make the mistake of assuming politicians believe their own bullshit. It’s just convenient messaging for their actual goals.
Does it really matter if they believe it though, if they still have or are at least trying to gain/maintain the power to act on it?
Either way, they’re throwing already marginalised people under the bus.
Plenty of them are craven enough to know what they do with their vessels.
makes political song, politicians use it for politics
shocked Pikachu face
I mean you’re not wrong.
Bring back old skool rednecks who beat up their bosses and sing about it
eh, unless he’s not getting a cut it’s just drama nonsense.
I hope he sues.