Country music singer Travis Tritt recently tweeted a controversial comment in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. The tweet was in support of gun owners but at the same time took an implicit swipe at Muslims and the liberal media. The tweet has generated the predictable outrage, but also a lot of supportive replies.
It is interesting that we are asked to NOT judge all Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics. Too bad gun owners can’t get same judgement [sic].
A quick Google search reveals that Travis Tritt is an open Republican, which is exactly what you would expect him to be if he weren’t a celebrity. Tritt is a male country music singer from Marietta, Georgia (pronounce May-Rhetta by us Georgians) which likely makes him what I’ll call a visceral Red. In the US, musicians, actors and other celebrities are generally associated with liberalism, but liberalism and the Democrat party coalition have become increasingly focused on upholding the PC narrative and enforcing rightthink, and much less concerned with the economic status of the working man.
What self-respecting, red-blooded male country singer from Georgia wants to be associated with the Blue Team which thinks people like him are the problem? Here we have gender and regional identification trumping celebrity identification. Tritt had to know that his tweet was provocative. Hence, it is tempting to view it as a deliberate act of Red flag flying. If so, it was wildly successful.
What I believe we may be starting to see more of is a reaction against this dynamic by some celebrities and genres that is driving them into the arms of the Red Team even if it is sometimes not an exact fit. They likely just aren’t viscerally comfortable being associated with a Blue Team that makes devotion to PC dogma the main criteria of membership.
Take for example, Kid Rock, who began his career as a rap-rock artist but who has since morphed into more of a Southern and Country Rock singer. He is a Republican who endorsed Mitt Romney and describes his views as libertarian. He was recently the subject of controversy because he used the word “gay” as a pejorative descriptor, but he didn’t back down. He told his critics where they could stick their criticism. This is not Blue Team approved behavior. It is tempting to surmise that this shift toward Southern-flavored Rock presaged his increased public identification as a Red.
Also take for example, #MetalGate, which is the Heavy Metal equivalent of #GamerGate. Few people would mistake Heavy Metal for a conservative genre in the classical sense, just ask Tipper Gore, but what it is is anti-authority and generally favored by testosterone addled white youths and aging white males. These folks don’t take kindly to thought policers telling them that if they aren’t explicitly promoting PC orthodoxy, which makes people like them the villain, then they are in need of a not so gentle nudge from their enlightened betters.
I suspect we will see more of this backlash against liberal PC stridency. Team Blue is making identification with it increasingly toxic for certain predictable types. We are incessantly told by the liberal media that the Red Team makes itself unappealing because of its “extremism,” as if extremism is exclusively found on the right. Read the headlines at Salon or take a look at the content of Daily Kos and get back to me with that why don’t you. Both read like deliberate spoofs of PC if you didn’t know better. Travis Tritt, Kid Rock and a bunch of Metal Heads appear to know better. Let’s hope more follow.
