OPINION: Michael Strahan Owes Country Music Fans an Apology for Calling Them Racists

Country music fans are racists.

That’s the conclusion Good Morning America host Michael Strahan came to after sitting down with Morgan Wallen in the singer’s first interview since he was caught on camera calling a white friend the n-word.

Strahan noted that, though Wallen’s agency dropped him, his record label suspended him, country radio stations banned his songs, and awards shows blocked his eligibility, his fans refused to abandon him. Indeed, he seemed to acquire a number of new ones — his latest album, “Dangerous,” rocketed to the top of the charts to make him the bestselling artist of the year. This, Strahan took as proof that country’s customer base approved of Wallen’s reprehensible word choice.

“A lot of people look at that, as just you know, it says a lot about country music and the race situation in country music,” the former NFL star told co-anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday.

The race situation in country music.

In other words, according to Strahan, Wallen’s album sales prove that the genre is full of bigots.

Strange then that these same fans also sent the lead single off Darius Rucker’s latest album to the top of the Country Airplay chart. It’s also a bit of puzzler that, thanks to their buying decisions, Kane Brown’s recent release, “Experiment,” debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. And that’s to say nothing of Jimmie Allen selling out his summer music festival.

To Strahan, the country fans who are downloading those songs and buying those tickets are harboring prejudice in their hearts. And the thing that proves it isn’t the hard-earned money they have been plunking down since country wasn’t cool to hear black artists like Charley Pride and Cleve Francis, but their refusal to let the media-entertainment machine dictate when someone’s career is over in their industry.

Immediately after news of the scandal broke, establishment outlets like NPR, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and CNN rushed to frame those few seconds of candid video as something more than an isolated boozy transgression. How, they all seemed to ask, can we characterize this as a problem that goes beyond one man, one moment? How can we use it to rebuke country music and reshape it into something more like pop, rock, and Hollywood—something that feeds our leftwing agenda?

Wallen’s success was the fans’ answer: You can’t.

Like Gandalf bringing down his staff and announcing to a horde of marauding Orcs, “You shall not pass,” Wallen’s album sales represent average, everyday country listeners telling the elite class they have no power over them.

If country music had a racism problem, wouldn’t the media have had something to point to as proof beyond a single, drunken slur caught in a reckless (though not malicious) moment?

Strahan and his colleagues’ real issue with country is that it is the last major cultural outpost that has remained impervious to the Left’s influence. In no other recording genre could artists as openly conservative as John Rich, Kid Rock, Aaron Lewis, Hank Williams Jr., Trace Adkins, Toby Keith, and Travis Tritt not just survive, but thrive. And the industry that has celebrated old time religion since its inception wasn’t about to let the new, merciless theology of cancel culture come in and change that.

The message country fans are sending through their support of Wallen, who has apologized and shown real contrition by canceling his summer tour, isn’t that they approve of his language, it’s that they aren’t going to cede their independence to a graceless, soulless movement that co-opts all art and culture as opportunities to push a political agenda.

Wallen was country music’s Alamo. And this time, the little guys won.

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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