This song does such a good job with communicating the conservaive trinity:
- persecution complex
- mad about things they themselves voted for
- mad that the other is getting something, which is obviously undeserved
In his interviews he claims he is a centrist but takes issues with teachers turning girls into boys and boys into girls.
I have no problem with uncle craker having a differing opinion. But I do have a problem when you haul your differing opinion up the stairs of a public stage and actively try to hurt others.
So he’s a centrist™?
He may have been looking at globe when answering that one.
where are the teachers
tell me
I want the gender
I’m ootl, what’s the song?
Rich men North of Richmond
Now I’m debating if I want to give him more views…
It’s not exactly a lyrical masterpiece.
Rich Men North of Richmond Lyrics
[Verse 1]
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away[Pre-Chorus]
It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is[Chorus]
Livin’ in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond[Verse 2]
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat
And the obese milkin’ welfare[Verse 3]
Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground
‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down[Pre-Chorus]
Lord, it’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is[Chorus]
Livin’ in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond[Outro]
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay“I wish the government would help people.”
Welfare exists.
“No, not like that.”
These lyrics reflect completely legitimate working class anxieties but supports the system that perpetuates them. “Taxed to no end,” the corporate tax rate has been brought down by lobbying for decades. The obese focus is on one hand legit since eating like shit is cheap, but it has blinders on about why that is, since it’s not convenient to their point.
These parts are all completely legit, although the lyrics are pretty bad. The same things have been said by much better voices in much better ways.
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground
‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down
Overall it’s a great example of politics in America right now and how the working class is exploited by the right wing, as well as how liberal media, in the mainstream “dialogue,” fails to address the working class anxieties and instead focuses on the “controversy” of the song. The coverage isn’t really about the lyrics, it’s about the way people are interpreting them politically, and it all favors and perpetuates the exact same system.
So persecuted that a bunch of rich guys put their thumbs on the scale and ascended his music to the charts because they agreed with the message. The Rich Men North of Richmond want total control, no not the ones I agree with, the other ones.
Yeah, I totally agree with everything you said. The anxieties felt by people on the far right are real, they’ve just got a skewed perception of the cause of their problems.
Could someone copy the video to Piped somehow, for those of us not wanting to give clicks??
IDK how to do it, otherwise I wouldThank you! I watched it!
I still have no clue what the deal is with it, since it doesn’t seem too different from any other hipster singing similar Country songs as that, but at least now I’ve heard it, so thank you
Rich Men North of Richmond, by Oliver Anthony
honestly I’m still shocked people are buying into Reagan’s welfare queen nonsense 40+ fucking years later
Step 1 to believing welfare queen nonsense: Be racist and imagine said queen as being black
Or Hispanic or native American or an immigrant
Immigrants aren’t even eligible for EBT until they’re citizens but it doesn’t stop the whining from the right
Yeah, their propaganda outlets tell them that immigrants are eligible for everything and are indeed sucking up most of it.
When in reality all they’re eligible for is WIC if they’re pregnant or a young mother
Which is a completely fair and humane policy of course, but only if you see non-citizens as people.
And their children as anything more valuable to society than an anchor baby for their parents to stay in the US
Meanwhile in the real world: White people are the ones that have historically benefited the most from welfare programs and the “Welfare Queen” made 8k$ from her scheme.
I legit actually like country music. Country music and punk rock. Both of them are just three chords and the truth
And man, when this song started, dude came in hot. I loved it. And then he went flying right off the rails.
Exactly what I thought, the first verse and most of the chorus is legit working class anxiety. The rest is blaming other victims of the system, and while it references “rich men,” it contains no criticism of their wealth, the reference to taxes is more the opposite.
Well it kinda does criticize them, just only if they are located above a certain geographical point
A friend sent it to me, and at first I was hopeful… then I was like ‘hmm… strange choice of wording’ then I was like ‘oh, that was deliberate’ as it started to sound more like propaganda and less like a legitimate statement.
I know this guy. I mean, not exactly this guy but pretty much.
i work with this guy…the type of guy to say “i got covid like a week before it got big, im the one who gave it to everyone at work, haha.”
…yeah.
I can’t tell you how many people walked into my store at the height of that shit and said, “Well, I got the wuflu. It ain’t nothin’. Just a dang cold.”
Or, “shew buddy, China bug is about to wipe me out buddy. I ain’t never been so sick in my life. cough cough cough Whatchu wearing’ ‘at democrat rag for? You can still smell a fart cain’t yuh?”
omfg… “shew buddy”…get out. get out of my town, out of my head XD too gd real
Someone here mentioned this dude lives in a camper as somehow proof of his working class bona fides. Yeah…he lives on 90 acres of land that he wants to build a farm on and raise livestock. Doesn’t exactly scream “working class.”
Not that it matters. He could’ve written this song sitting down at the bottom of a mine at the end of his shift right before he was diagnosed with black lung and it still would’ve been a shitty racist song.
Also has anyone looked into how this shit got so popular? At least Jason Aldean is a known guy so it makes sense that song got popular, but with all the talk of industry plants this Oliver Anthony guy feels extremely sus. Especially for some nobody living off the grid somewhere in the middle of Virginia
Absolutely a plant. Nashville has been an arm of conservative propaganda since at least 9/11.
Yeah…he lives on 90 acres of land that he wants to build a farm on and raise livestock. Doesn’t exactly scream “working class.”
I mean props to them for using the well documented “equating farmer (owns land) with farmer (does farm work)”, it does usually trick people
not only this, but I think most of the people moved by this song are middle class anyway, and they don’t view owning property as any sort of privilege. I’ve already gotten one guy going “well actually the bank technically owns it and he’s paying it off.” Like bruh, have you ever talked to an actual poor person?
Rocking up the working class bank to get a loan for a 90 acre property
nah, i hear if you tell them you’ve never worked a day in your life and plan to suck the teat of the state forever, they’ll just give you a -1000% loan with a one cent down payment
and then you can just get your 90 acres.
remember, it’s the homeless who are the real landlords.
id be willing to wager a $20 he used A.I. software and tweaked it for these lyrics. everyone commenting has been skirting, what i think, to be just a new trend in bait music.
The song is bad yet just cognitive enough to cause a stir.
Don’t forget how infectious stupid can be, especially when under pressure
As it’s relevant, let’s remember the video Hank Green posted on TikTok discussing how “for every word expressing a negative emotion in a headline, that increased the click-through rate to that article by 2.3%” and "if they make us disgusted, outraged, frustrated, scared? Then? Then we start thinking about clicking
It looks to reference this article from Nature:
Robertson, C.E., Pröllochs, N., Schwarzenegger, K. et al. Negativity drives online news consumption. Nat Hum Behav 7, 812–822 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4It’s easier to be a pessimist in a pessimistic situation than to be an optimist I suppose
Throwback to when @destineenstark gave an 8m3s discussion and analysis on TikTok spelling out how DESPITE Jason Williams swearing that all the video from “try that in a ‘small’ town” is all original and genuine, one thing is from Berlin, Germany, another from Plovdiv, Bulgaria, another stock image from somewhere else…
Corporate subsidies and corporate tax evasion are always in competition for big dollar values. Not to mention unpaid wages.
Meanwhile there are POOR people getting some FOOD??!??!?
That’s because a lot of Americans are under the impression that poor people are poor because they’re lazy, and not because they’re victims of oppression. They even cling to this absurd belief when they themselves are the victims of similar oppression. Must be lead in the water or something…
It is basically a slightly different variations of this
I’ve lived in very poor, rural, white American places, and it’s unironically all about skin color.
White and poor? It’s because the Democrats illegally steal your money with taxes, and any welfare is just you getting back less than you deserve.
Black and poor? It’s because you’re bad, and any welfare is the Democrats buying your vote and supporting you destroying the country with your violence.
Can confirm. There is no such thing as a “white welfare queen”.
It’s an outcome of puritanical Protestantism in the modern day. It’s nicknamed prosperity theology. Lack of wealth is seen as a moral failure, rather than a societal one. To be wealthy is to be granted abundance by God, and to be poor is to be punished for misdeeds in the eyes of God. It’s a cruel ideal that is deeply embedded into right wing American religious spaces.
Ah, yes. I remember Jesus explaining this in the lecture on the mount.
That sounds like something supply side Jesus would do
I was at guitar center shopping for a nylon classical and this kid was singing that Oliver guy’s one song in the acoustic room.
When he finished I told him that song is about me.
He also played wonder wall, no joke, 10 times.
this kid is training to become every white guy at a party with a guitar
Lmfao
You’re telling me that in the year of our lord 2023, people believe that welfare alone is enough to cover housing, food, and clothing? This really ought to set anyone with a brain completely off. You know how much you get from the government on welfare? Not even 500 fucking dollars
LMFAO how brainwashed can you possibly be?
You could be mad at both… why is this a black and white issue? EBT abuse is real.
I have seen people literally sell the milk they get from EBT that was intended to be used for their baby. They bragged about being able to get the new iphone with it. I have seen homeless who buy bottled water on SNAP only to dump and resell the bottles so they could get cash for their addictions. Why would i not be mad at that just as I am at how corporate bailouts didnt help anyone except the top .01% of society?
Edit: so many hexbears. I dont care to respond to Kremlin bots.
“The homeless people were on the streets making welfare fraud and I saw one of the welfare frauds and the welfare fraud looked at me.”
Yeah man, I live in a fucking nice apartment and make enough money that I can sit on my ass listening to racist fake bluegrass and posting on obscure Internet forums, my entire life rests upon a literal mountain of human suffering that I am blessed never to have to come into contact with. But you know what I’m really mad about? A homeless dude making $3.
Post hog liberal
“Yeah, rich people take orders of magnitudes more money from society in order to reinvest it in very concretely destroying society further, but did you consider that someone who was over-prescribed opiods as part of a deliberate campaign by the Sacklers also take up money coping with the addiction they ended up with?”
Fuck off. There are important societal benefits to welfare, while corporate bailouts and the like are a cancer intended only to give the rich more money.
If you are more angry against some poor people addicted to opioids than you are against the billionaire oligarchs who made their money off of addicting millions of people to opioids… you might have a severe case of myopia.
Idk man, just seems like small potatoes, and rare. Everyone has to eat and I find it doubtful that the skinny EBT amounts will fund an addict’s lifestyle significantly if the food is resold on the secondary market.
When it comes to government waste? It’s not nothing, but I think you’re right, it is technically small potatoes. But it isn’t rare, I’ve heard 2 very credible firsthand accounts. The result of one I’ve actually witnessed, repeatedly.
So idk exactly how that SNAP/EBT stuff works, but it’s just a certain amount loaded up on a card. I thought it was $200, and $200 went a hell of a lot further in 2017. My friend had a deal worked out with his neighbor, he’d “purchase” that $200 SNAP/EBT card for $100. They’d take that to the store & eat really, really well! 😂
We justified playing into it because if we didn’t buy it, they’d just sell it to somebody else. So why not us? Why shouldn’t we get the food? But yeah those neighbors wanted $100 CASH more than a $200 card to buy food. Is this behavior rare?..probably not as rare as you think. But definitely not common, and small potatoes.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
Why would i not be mad at that just as I am at how corporate bailouts didnt help anyone except the top .01% of society?
You could start by having the tiniest bit of class consciousness instead of being a fucking serf.
I have seen homeless who buy bottled water on SNAP only to dump and resell the bottles so they could get cash for their addictions.
If you’re going to lie, why make up the most nonsensical lie imaginable?
If you’re going to lie, why make up the most nonsensical lie imaginable?
Worked for Reagan.
Surely it’s a bit, LMAO. How is that something that could even be witnessed? Where is the open air empt water bottle market even located? :data-laughing:
You can return empty bottles in some states, but it’s for 5 cents. The guy I spoke to last Thursday about his fentanyl addiction told me he needed about $100 to get his fix for the day back when he used. It’s just absurd.
They saw a captioned video on the TikTok and actually believed it
I’ve seen this first hand a good few times - believe me or not because I don’t want to be too specific about my experience. You’ve got to be super desperate to pour out a 40 count of bottled water for $2-4, but people with nothing else but SNAP/EBT/etc funds will do it.
It’s sad and wasteful, but it’s also such a marginal thing compared to the Sacklers making the opium wars look like a prank that I don’t see how it can even brought up in the same conversation - except as deflection.
I’ve seen no shortage of people reselling water bottles with water in them (common especially in places with lots of tourists) but just selling the fucking bottles?
It’s such a comical lie, it’s almost insulting how bad it is
If you live in a state with a bottle deposit. The $0.05-0.10 is paid with the government aid, but returned as cash to the redeemer. It’s a poor and laborious return on investment, but doesn’t require actually hustling to sell water like that to tourists.
[Removed a bit too much hostility.]
I work with homeless people, many of whom have substance abuse issues. I’ve heard of all sorts of ways to get money for drugs (by the way, $2-4 isn’t going to get that done, not even close) and have never heard of anything close to this ridiculous.
It’s unbelievable. As someone else pointed out, with selling them you’re looking at $40, not $2-4, for standing at an intersection or in a park. And you don’t need to do it 30-40 times to get your fix.
They’re drugs Michael, how much could they cost, $3?
If opiods were as cheap as this person claims and as deadly as cops claim, the U.S. would have dropped them on Afghanistan, not encouraged the locals to grow them.
Gob, go run to the opioid store and buy mommy one fentanyl.
No you haven’t.
No but I have seen homeless people picking up other’s littered recycling and taking it to the grocery store for the pennies deposit and that’s basically the same thing
Ah yes someone selling a few dollars of milk is definitely the same as a corporation stealing millions. Ah yes. These two are the same.
Wonder what the milk to iPhone exchange rate is these days
According to this person 1:1
Only if it’s whole milk, if it’s skim milk that there is lesser milk. I once saw a man drink that and his dick fell off. Need at least 3 of them milks for a iphone.
wow, I can’t believe someone would commit moral failures such as buying an iphone. the absolute outrage.
sounds like people shouldn’t be impoverished. that’s the conclusion you should be drawing, not this moral crusader thing of looking down your nose at impoverished people. If poor people are doing things you find distasteful, why not focus your energy on the people who create and spread poverty in the first place? and no, that’s not poor people. It’s the capitalists and their servants in the state
Why would i not be mad at that just as I am at how corporate bailouts didnt help anyone except the top .01% of society?
Scale. The amount that the capitalists steal from you is orders of magnitude larger than whatever infinitesimal amount of tax dollars (well, more accurately, cents) you lose because an unhoused person used a loophole to buy drugs. Personally I can’t even imagine being angry at the two people you mentioned. Nor is there a realistic way to prevent those things that wouldn’t punish the 99% of people who just use EBT to buy food like its intended.
(I also really don’t care if people find a way to use EBT money to buy something else in general. Like I can’t think of a single reason to be bothered by that. And I life off EBT and only ever use it the “correct” way.)
This isn’t political memes
Memes supersede the idea of political memes and encompasses them as well
Can I ask what made you feel the need to share your bitching and moaning about a meme you could’ve easily scrolled by with the rest of the class?
There was somewhere this could be posted where Americans can meme about their politics, this isn’t a “general” meme that people from outside the US would understand or care about.
Let me know what else I can do for extra credit.
Users will continue to post about things that affect them in their own location, which sometimes means posting about stuff that isn’t globally understandable.
It’s meme community lmfao, are you really crying about pedantics
xD
Let’s conflate the prime thrust of the song with just the one line where he refers to food stamps and crucify him / not hold those sewing poverty and anxiety into society to account
The lyrics are extremely basic and not creative in the slightest. They make gestures towards working class solidarity, but are petit bourgeois attitudes wrapped in redneck aesthetics for comfortable middle class folk. Songs like this are a dime a dozen, and I’m sure you can find another song like this, especially in country/bluegrass, without the racist undertones.
Oh I don’t need the song I’m just pointing out how people are providing incompetent analysis like yourself
Okay, so what in your mind is the “prime thrust” of the song. Because to me it has a pretty clear middle class perspective
The prime thrust of the song is a dogwhistle about the confederacy
It’s a populist song it’s got fuck all to do with race. Try thinking for yourself and stop being an apologist for corporatism. What you don’t like is the populism because you like being lap dog to corporations so you try to conflate anything populist with racism because you saw someone else do it and you are a follower.
I didn’t say race. I said Confederacy. The lyrics continuously dogwhistle about the mason dixon line and the union / confederacy divide.
Can it really be populist and anti-corporate if it repeats talking points from Raegan? And if it was almost certainly funded and put in front of us by a think tank?
The song is racist and so are you. Populism is corporate you fucking idiot.
Songs are not often literal. When he sings about the “obese” i think he means “the wealthy” and not literally fat people.
deleted by creator
He literally says if you’re 5’3" and 300 lbs and eating fudge. Specifically referring to an obese person on welfare. Nothing hidden here.
