Earlier this month, Morgan Wallen became the first artist to have three singles reach Number One on both the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Hot 100 charts, capping off a year that’s seen the popularity of country music rise to its biggest moment in decades, if not ever. The face-tattooed duo of Jelly Roll and Post Malone each released crossover Number One albums, and Zach Bryan (despite shirking the “country” title) has been selling out stadiums and issuing chart-topping albums, even without radio play. Meanwhile, young, social-media-savvy artists like Gavin Adcock are building both images and loyal followings online by pounding beers and talking smack.
If you were a white man in country music this year, congratulations: You probably expanded your fanbase in ways beyond your wildest, most Joe Rogan-esque dreams.
Naturally, critics have struggled to explain this sudden rise in popularity, especially among young people, and not just in rural areas or “red states,” but in cities. Are these fans, who previously often gravitated toward other genres, searching for “authenticity” in a modern world? A return to some mythologized simpler time, and music that offered safe and familiar storytelling? Or did something else draw them in?
But maybe instead of just asking why, we should go another step further: What exactly does it all mean? If that sounds like a question you’ve been asking in the wake of Donald Trump’s decisive win in the 2024 presidential election, there’s good reason: We’ve been missing the point, and the voters, all along.
Trump’s campaign — not unlike a certain segment of music beloved by white dudes on country radio — was based in part on nostalgia for a formerly “great” time period in U.S history when white identity was unthreatened and women held traditional roles. Country music has always been a good vehicle for that. It was Ronald Reagan’s campaign that initially coined the phrase “Make America Great Again,” and the former cowboy actor harnessed country music and its imagery (he was often seen on horseback) to court a frustrated electorate. The rise in popularity of the genre among folks that used to pledge listening to “anything but country music” was the red flag flapping in the wind. But like the skyrocketing success of right-wing podcasts, it was a lot easier to ignore or even make fun of than it was to see the underlying threat.
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Country music was resonating not just in Southern states, where it had always been part of the fabric, but also taking over pop culture and reaching young white people, some who might not even describe themselves as conservative but may have been searching for a watered-down, digestible form of populism that contains no actual self-sacrifice. Finally, here was an art form to latch on to when progressive artists (and their politics) alienated them a little too much, or demanded they work just a bit harder to diversify the genre or have empathy for people other than themselves. In other words, it sure was easy to listen to Morgan Wallen.
By context cues, Wallen seems to lean conservative, though he’s not as overt as a Jason Aldean when it comes to making his opinions known, and his personal politics are almost beside the point: He hasn’t released a Trumpist political anthem like “Try that in a Small Town,” and didn’t join Trump in the box at last summer’s Republican convention. Instead, Wallen’s brand revolves around a combination of seemingly harmless Southern stuff (SEC football! beer!) and more traditionally pop-centric elements (Post Malone collabs, trap beats, co-opting certain segments of Black music). The fact that Wallen, who easily came back from a 2021 scandal involving a racial slur, is so popular, was a clue about how eager so many young white men, especially, were to feel safe from the so-called “woke agenda.”
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Paying attention to the culture of country music, and not just who is listening to it, can also tell us a thing or two about where the genre affinity of voters for Trump were heading (or, when it came to gender politics, regressing). Country radio is notoriously hostile to women, with airplay for female artists generally hovering below 10 percent. In the past two years, despite fervent efforts for equality, things are no better for women — Lainey Wilson and Megan Moroney, the white blonde women allowed to succeed at this moment, are both still struggling to notch Number Ones for their respective new singles. And Beyoncé, despite critical success and numerous Grammy nominations for Cowboy Carter, failed to convince Music Row that her album was deserving of consideration in the country universe, while they rolled out the red carpet for Post Malone. Country music, and the country, was sending a clear message about who exactly they were ready to welcome into any world traditionally dominated by white men — be it the radio or the presidency.
2024 was also the year that country music, while always containing an element of faith, embraced a pop mainstreaming of Christianity. Anne Wilson’s Rebel was designed to merge both country and Christian pop, with a single, “Rain in the Rearview,” shipped to country radio. Gabby Barrett also teetered on the line, with plans to double down even further. The Associated Press AP VotetoCast reported that eight in 10 white evangelical Christian voters supported Trump, so it was no surprise to see Wilson release her Trump-supporting anthem “Stand” in the fall. Still, watching an artist cross the line from worship songs to what can be considered political propaganda is no less alarming. (Are you sure Dolly done it this way?)
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Of course, not all country music is conservative, not all conservatives like country music, and not all country music is made by white men — and so much of what the genre offers is a welcoming, familiar solace in troubled, complicated times. But it all begs the question: Are people coming to country music because they are drifting to the right? Or is country music, Trump, and a life without the “judgment” of the left, something that’s too good to ignore when they get there? After all, the genre’s biggest star, Wallen, is the model for how to thrive in a post-cancellation world.
Watching the explosion of the country genre as a symptom and not a cause could have worked in the Democrats’ favor, or at least helped offer an understanding that the youthful electorate weren’t moving left as they would have liked to assume. Kamala’s Glock and Camo hats on their own just weren’t enough to sway restless voters in the middle. Mainstream country, in all its red, white, and blue glory, was waiting for them with open arms. And so was Trump.
