WaPo Tries to Cancel Country Music. Really
The increasingly liberal paper attempts to shame the genre with pathetic spin
Cancel Culture isn’t done with country superstar Morgan Wallen, this site declared just days ago.
It turns out its next target may be country music itself.
Wallen infamously uttered the “n-word,” just like Hunter Biden repeatedly texted without fallout, and watched his career collapse overnight.
He temporarily lost his label, his ability to be heard on radio stations and streaming platforms alike and more. Major awards shows told him to stay home, even as they honored his chart-topping hits.
Wallen publicly apologized multiple times. He sought counseling for addiction issues. He forked over half a million dollars to black nonprofit groups.
Not enough, Cancel Culture decried.
Now, The Washington Post is gunning for more than just Wallen. It wants to cancel an entire musical genre. Here’s the headline, in case you think there’s hyperbole in play.
“A year of country music controversies has left some fans disappointed — and wondering whether they should keep listening”
What are those “controversies?”
- Country superstars didn’t speak up enough about systemic racism following George Floyd’s death
- Wallen used the n-word in private (and not against any person of color and sans malice)
- Country music still isn’t diverse enough
- Jason Aldean doesn’t like President Joe Biden (… have you seen the polls, WaPo?)
- Some country singers are against mask mandates for school children, which isn’t done in European countries and ignores the minuscule threat COVID-19 poses to children
- Some country singers are against vaccine mandates
- Carrie Underwood “liked” a Tweet critical of mask mandates in schools (earning a Fact Check in the process)
Time to cancel country music, apparently.
We then meet several country music fans who no longer listen to the genre based on all of the above. Clearly, something must change, never mind the fact they represent a microscopic minority of fans.
It’s the kind of argument you might (might!) see on a Daily Kos blog, but even that far-left platform might recoil at the idiocy in play. Instead, one of the nation’s premiere news outlets uncorked it — and it’s not even in the op-ed section.
That’s where it clearly belongs, if it deserves space on the platform at all.
Here’s how WaPo explains away how most country music fans support one of the so-called controversies listed above – Aldean’s anti-Democrat arguments.
If you just scrolled through the ecstatic comments below the posts, it would be easy to get the impression that all country fans agreed with this declaration. But if you look closely, especially lately, that’s far from the case.
You mean some country music fans disagree with some arguments made by the stars? So what about pop music fans? What if they disagree with the industry’s progressive messaging? Remember when Madonna dreamed of blowing up the White House, presumably with the Trump family inside?
Is that problematic, too? Where’s that article? Isn’t that hate speech?
We’re then told there are openly liberal country music stars, too. Phew! But it’s clearly not enough for WaPo or fans who demand artists display total solidarity with their world view.
RELATED: How the Media Makes Cancel Culture Worse
One country fan thinks the “n-word” incident should have crushed Wallen’s career, permanently.
“How that wasn’t the end of his career to me says a lot about the country fan base and some of the artists themselves who just didn’t speak out against what he said or did.”
Who cares what she thinks, especially when Wallen’s music is soaring on the charts right now?
Next, we meet a country music fan from … Ontario. They really had to stretch to find these voices, no?
Hasan Zia, who lives in Ontario, used to enjoy Wallen’s songs (“I showed his music to my non-country fan friends as an example of how country music is good”) but has taken him out of her listening rotation.
That an august news outlet published this Cancel Culture plea shows how reporters dwell in a bubble of their own biases. And, when confronted by people who disagree with their world view and so-called facts, lash out with all the fury they can muster.
The Washington Post should be ashamed.
You know the Dixie chicks were canceled on country radio 20 years ago for criticizing the Iraq war. Is that not cancel culture? Or is it only liberals that can be guilty of that?
https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/evjvqe/sixteen-years-later-country-radio-is-still-mad-at-the-dixie-chicks-taylor-swift-soon-youll-get-better
They were “canceled” for going to a another country and publicly saying they were ashamed of being from Texas, because George W is from Texas. It wasn’t about the Iraq War, it was about virtue signaling. Like when the dropped the word Dixie from their name.